It Will Be A Perfect Victory
by Dougster
Summary: Do or die time for Babydoll and the girls. Zombies and orcs, robots and dragons, can our heroines battle through in time? Song links on profile page
1. Sweet Dreams Aren't Made Of This

Stepdad had known it from the start: he should never have believed that shifty-eyed snake of an orderly. The guy always spoke as if probing you with his words, searching out ways to get what he wanted. If not for the urgency of the circumstances, Stepdad would never have struck that deal or rushed _her_ to the sanitarium—places like that gave him the creeps—never would have handed his own money to that freak, or upped the payment to an amount that felt like a punch to the gut every time he thought about it. "Oh, I'll just forge the signature." "I've done it a hundred times!" And then the guy turned right around and spilled all to the judge.

"Nuts."

Stepdad muttered this while packing the last of what had turned out to be two dozen suitcases, traincases and pieces of luggage. This was a maroon garment bag lying open on his bed, for all his suits—that is, except the dark gray one he'd worn during the trial on his lawyer's advice. Dark colors would remind jurors he was a bereaved man. _That_ suit he had torn off and thrown out the minute he got home from the trial.

But! Good thing he believed in happy endings. Just like _she_ used to talk about happy endings, from the fairy tales her mother had read to her as a girl. He only regretted that she had no longer had the brain capacity to know how it had all turned out...

_"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury!"_

_The way Stepdad's attorney thundered, shaking his finger at the orderly on the witness stand! The very picture of penitence was that whiny orderly. Stepdad's attorney wasn't fooled for a moment._

"His_ idea, my friends.__ His alone. Was he, or was he not, caught red-handed trying to have his way with the girl immediately after her lobotomy? The sole remaining loved one of a man—just look at that poor man, hes on the verge of tears—so recently bereaved of a wife and stepdaughter! And as if that wasnt heinous enough, the defendant then tried to pin the blame on _him!"_ The attorney staggered, clamped a hand to his forehead—"has he no shame? Has he honestly no shame?"_

_The ladies and gentlemen of the jury had eaten it up. Twenty-two minutes of deliberation, then fifty years for Mr. Snake! Who—Stepdad grinned—had to be dragged from the courtroom literally kicking and screaming._

_And at last, all those millions for me!_

Stepdad picked the last suit from the closet, tossed it on top of the rest and, with a bit of grunting and tugging, zipped the garment bag closed. He sighed, wiped his brow and went to pour himself a brandy.

"And now," he said out loud, "I'm off to California."

The phone rang. Its chimes echoed through the halls, could be heard from anywhere in that vast mansion. He drained the glass, followed the ringing to its source and picked up the receiver.

"Hello."

"It's Mel."

Stepdad tensed. Why would his attorney call now?

Maybe now would be a good time to thank him again for his stellar courtroom performance, for freeing Stepdad to the life he'd sought and schemed after for years...

"Mel, this had better be important."

The aluminum-haired attorney spoke with the eloquence of a politician, always wore a perfectly starched and creased suit. He seemed not so much a lawyer as someone who settled for a lawyers job because he couldn't be president. "You know I wouldn't call if..." He trailed off. "Listen. She's conscious."

Stepdad nearly dropped the phone. When he spoke again his voice was hoarse. "Are you sure?"

"Dr. Gorski just called me. It happened about an hour ago. The girl's up and about, remembers everybody, lucid as she ever was. And," he added, "she's talking."

Stepdad gripped the phone tighter. The whole nightmare of the past month rushed back and shuddered his overweight frame. "Don't play games with me, man! Are you really sure?"

"I can only tell you what Dr. Gorski said. I asked her that same question, more than once, and yes, she's as certain of it as her own name."

Stepdad's knuckles turned white; any tighter grip and he might crush the receiver. He should have known it was bad news—this was the same phone he'd been using the night _she_ came storming out of her sister's bedroom, pointing her gun at him.

"How?" he croaked.

"Here's what Dr. Gorski thinks happened. There are two cases on record, only two, of lobotomies reversing themselves. Different countries, different doctors doing the procedure, but the patients had one thing in common: both had unusually rich imaginations—stories, fantasy worlds. Its as if—once more, this is according to Dr. Gorski—as if exercising those imaginations somehow strengthened and healed their physical brains, even after a violation of this degree."

Stepdad ignored that last part. His mind raced back: all the pulp magazines packed into the girl's closet and piled on the end table next to her bed, _The Hobbit_ and _Lord of The Rings_ that she spoke so much about, her school studies of feudal Japan and the World Wars. She had devoured it all, yes, and more besides.

"Mel." He clutched the phone like a lifeline. "What are we going to do?"

"We?" The attorney snapped as if in a courtroom. Stepdad shuddered, and suddenly felt like _he_ was now on the stand. "_We_ aren't going to do anything. Not if she remembers everything you told me about. And Dr. Gorski assures me that the girl recalls every single little detail. Know what that means?"

Stepdad closed his eyes. "What, Mel?"

"It means I can't help you. You're on your own."

_Click._

Stepdad stood listening to the dial tone for a moment. Then he very slowly replaced the receiver in its cradle and sank down onto the sofa and placed his head in his hands.

For some unknown reason, all he could think of was how he'd derided her for it. Often at the dinner table, where she chattered out weird tales for her mother and sister. Derided her for—what was it?—living in her own world. Yes, that was it. Her own world. "Never do you a bit of good in real life," he had said, or snarled or shouted, depending on how drunk he was.

And as his world crumbled around him, Stepdad wondered if she remembered that, too.

_Author's note: the two case histories are fictional, although it's a nice thought. If readers like this story, I can continue it, and we can see where it takes us from here. _

_In any case, fellow fans, thanks for reading! :)_


	2. The Voice

Stepdad wasn't sure how long he sat there—it may have been an hour, or only a few minutes—when the phone rang.

Without thinking, he picked it up. "Hello."

"This is—" The man on the other end pronounced a name. At the sound of it, Stepdad awoke, jolting upright in his chair.

The voice continued. "You sound like _you_ were the one lobotomized. The way everything turned out, maybe you should have been."

Stepdad grabbed the phone with both hands. "It wasn't my fault! They botched the damn operation!" The details he left out; he had neither the time nor the inclination to explain it all.

"Why aren't you on your way to California, man? I thought you were going to take a vacation before we started our venture."

"I just talked to my lawyer! That little b—that girl's telling everything!"

"I hope you at least had enough brains to close out your fat new bank account the minute it came under your control."

"Yes, yes, I did!" The proceeds, in fact, took up six of his packed suitcases.

"And you mean to tell me you're just sitting there, waiting for the police to come and collect you whenever they want?"

"Well..."

Stepdad didn't want to say: _I thought you'd dropped me, scrapped our plan when you heard the news._ And this man would have learned the news. Of that, there could be no doubt.

"Listen carefully," said the voice. "Get yourself and the money to Miller's Pleasure Airfield in Vernon. A man wearing a black suit and purple tie will meet you at the terminal entrance. He'll help you load the money on board a Howard 500 airplane, tail number P367. You'll be flown straight to me."

Stepdad listened with mouth open and eyes wide, nodding. He wasn't going to prison after all! "So everything's still on?"

"Yes. But let me say that if I'd been you, I'd have handled the whole situation differently. Now I fear we may have a considerable challenge on our hands."

Stepdad tightened his grip on the phone. "What do you mean by that?"

"Right now, just go. You've lost enough time already—damn it man, how could you just sit there? Go!"

_Click._

Stepdad bolted from his chair, slamming down the receiver on the way up. He jumped and flew about like a man awakened from a stupor by an electric charge that now crackled through his veins. He grabbed each of the cash-filled suitcases and hauled them out to the car, two at a time. He was a man on a mission now. He tried not to think of the cops who could arrive at any moment; instead, he occupied his mind with the venture.

_It's still on, it's still on!_

This venture would make him _untold_ amounts. The Businessman, when the two struck their agreement, made it clear he required startup capital. Mother's millions sufficed for that, if one was patient. The Businessman was patient.

And now Stepdad thrilled to a new lease on life. Everything he and the Businessman had talked about—the relocating to Europe, the opening of "establishments" strategically positioned around France, Germany, Italy, Belgium and England—glittering, liquor-soaked Nirvanas for men, at least on the surface. Most of the revenues would be generated by guns and narcotics, sold under the table. But it would be girls who lit up the new brothels and dance clubs, _filles_ and _Maedchen_ from all over the continent. Recruiting them would be easy; every country had its runaways. They would be trained in dance, conversation and the finer points of making the Businessman's clients feel "special." The dancers would work for pay as scant as their clothing, and live in conditions that would give any health inspector nightmares, but they would do it willingly.

With a grunt, Stepdad heaved the last of the suitcases into the back seat. Three suitcases in the trunk, three in the back, and all seemingly heavy as refrigerators; his back ached. The rest of his luggage he could leave, along with everything else in the house. Let _her_ have it if she wished.

He climbed into the driver's seat, fumbled with the keys, jammed them in the ignition and started the engine. It caught on the first try—a good sign, he hoped.

_Just get me there._ Once he joined the Businessman, the law couldn't touch him. No one could.

The sun had gone down. He put the car in gear, swung it around and eased down the long driveway, keeping the headlights off, just in case any neighbors (or police approaching from up the road) might see it. His hands shook; he fought to steady them while squinting to see in the dark. Clouds drifted in front of the moon.

Over the past two months, the Businessman paid Stepdad three personal visits. The two sat up into the wee hours in Stepdad's study, puffing cigars, while guards armed with forty-fives stood discreet watch around the grounds, watching for anything, anything at all, that might appear suspicious. Mother and daughters had no knowledge of the guards.

Stepdad had asked all his questions: What about all these European girls, on whom everything depended? What if they decided they had enough, wanted to quit, to go back home?

The Businessman took a drag on his cigar; the end of it glowed orange. He breathed out blue smoke. "Nobody's going to quit. Rest easy about that, my friend. You'll find that in my world, every last thing has its purpose." Another puff. "And we don't keep things in our establishments that have no purpose."

His revolver glinted in its shoulder holster. The Businessman had removed his suit jacket before sitting down, but not the gun.

Once, during the last of the meetings, Stepdad heard a faint scuffling noise behind the study door, and asked his partner to excuse him a moment. Creaking the door open, he thought he saw a dark shape vanishing around the corner.

The oldest daughter? Eavesdropping?

_No._ Driving down the hill in the dark, listening to the soft putter of the engine, he told himself now as then that it had been nothing. She hadn't heard a thing.

###

Thanks to everyone who read & reviewed the first chapter, and encouraged me to continue. Let's all discover together where this goes... ^_^ Best wishes, Doug


	3. Return To The Brothel

Author's note: Thanks to everyone who's read & reviewed! Hope you enjoy this part, where we rejoin Babydoll—and she begins her new mission...

* * *

><p>"Dr. Gorski." Babydoll spoke quietly. "You don't have to give me your office. I can sleep out out in the dorm."<p>

The doctor waved her off, finished supervising two white-uniformed orderies who were carrying in a bed from the ward. The _best_ bed, she'd assured her patient, although that probably didn't mean much. "Over there, please, opposite the desk—yes, set it down—now if we could get some fresh bedding? Thank you."

The two orderlies ran out, perhaps a little too eagerly. According to what Babydoll had heard, they had been there when Blue tried to make his move, objecting, protesting until he shouted them down. Doubtless anxious to do anything for her they could.

The doctor turned back to her patient. "I'm afraid it's the only way to give you some privacy. Doctors from as far away as Phoenix are calling us, wanting to come and examine you; word seems to have gotten out fast. And the police say they'll need a couple of days to go through the house before you can return to it."

She leaned back against her desk, motioned to a chair. "Please, sit." Babydoll sat.

For a moment, all was silent.

"The police didn't find him there," said the girl, "did they?"

The smile slipped off the doctor's face. "No. They didn't. They only found some packed suitcases in the master bedroom, and a garment bag on the bed. His car was missing from the driveway. He probably left just a few minutes before the authorities arrived."

Babydoll sat back in the leather chair and folded her arms. If he got away with mother's money, that could only mean one thing.

So how long? How long before he and the Businessman flew off to Europe? And started the plans she'd heard them talk about, laugh about, plans she could not believe even as she heard them...

Some things, she thought, should remain just fantasies.

Babydoll asked the doctor to excuse her, got up out of the doctor's chair, and turned around. She reached for the doorknob, but the door was not there. The door was gone, and the plaster walls of the office were gone, along with its harsh fluorescent lighting and antiseptic smell. She breathed blossom-scented air, and above her the sun shone in a cloudless spring sky.

The last time she had seen this place, snow was falling, and three hulking brutes confronted her like bulls pawing the ground. Now trees grew lush and green, dotted with cherry blossoms, and in the distance rose the snow-dusted peak of Mount Fuji. She herself wore a Buddhist robe like the man who lived here, taught here, and set her on her journey a seeming lifetime ago. A sash was tied around her waist, flagstones sun-warm under her bare feet.

Best of all, the temple stood again in all its old majesty, as if a World War III of swords, Gatling guns and exploding bazooka shells had never been fought there. It was good to see; it gladdened her heart.

She mounted the temple steps, the breeze ruffling her hair. The heavy oak door swung open before she reached the top.

"Babydoll."

The Wise Man, like the temple, appeared exactly the same as before: gray-haired, face creased with age, and he spoke in the gentle, deep manner befitting his name.

* * *

><p>Inside, the two sipped tea from porcelain cups in the light of a thousand twinkling candles, sitting cross-legged on a bamboo mat, facing each other. Steam curled up from the brass teapot between them.<p>

"You're looking well." The Wise Man set his cup down. "I trust you're enjoying your freedom?"

"Very much, thank you. In Paradise, I met my sister. She told me she understood and she forgave me, and said not to worry about her. We spent a whole lifetime together before I returned to the real world."

The wise man picked up the pot, refilled his cup. "Good, good. But..."

"Yes?"

"Your face. Something is troubling you."

"Yes." She explained about Stepdad. "And if he's able to join up with that man..."

The Wise Man nodded. "You know what it's like, to be forced into that kind of life."

"I won my liberty, with your help. Now I want to do that for others, too, if I can, to keep them from ever being enslaved to begin with. Others like my comrades."

Comrades they were indeed. Calling them "friends" wouldn't suffice. Their bond had been forged in the fires of battle; in reality, they were Babydoll's sisters. She had lost a sister, but gained four more. Fate was not always unkind.

"So," she went on after clinking down her teacup, "if you asked me now what I was looking for, I would give you the same answer—freedom, but for others like us. Girls that my stepfather and his partner are targeting."

The Wise Man listened, holding his cup with both hands. He nodded. "You have grown. It pleases me to hear this."

"It's also personal." Deep breath; this next part would not be easy. "The Businessman said he'd been in the brothel business since he was a boy. He boasted about shooting girls who got out of line or decided they'd had enough. I heard him say, very clearly, that he'd shot four of them in his life, 'right through the head,' and he was never arrested, never even questioned by the police."

The Wise Man set down his cup. "And what did your Stepfather say to that?"

Babydoll wished he hadn't asked. She bit her lip. "He said...also very clearly...'I wish I could just shoot that woman and be done with it.' And then they both laughed."

Her fists clenched. Time to come the point. "I can't do this by myself."

Another nod. "You have also learned the value of teamwork."

And Rocket...Amber...Blondie...

Her sisters, her comrades...

* * *

><p>"Emily?"<p>

Dr. Gorski touched Babydoll's arm. Strange—she almost hadn't recognized the name she had been born with. The girl reached up and patted it and gave the doctor a little smile. "Doctor? I'd like to see the patients."

The woman nodded. "They are under intensive care. I must tell you, Racquel probably will not recover from her knife wound; she's lost a great deal of blood. And the other two..."

Yes, the other two, drugged into comas that may well prove permanent. It was one of the many details that Blue had bawled out to the police. The cook and Racquel had gotten into a tussle over his knife—he'd had his eye on her for a long time, and finally made his move—and Blue had the two witnesses seized and knocked out and drugged within an inch of their lives...because if they turned in that fat freak of a cook, he might have revealed some unflattering things about Blue and his behind-the-scenes dealings at Lennox House.

The doctor continued. "It's very unlikely that, if the two ever regain consciousness, they'll remember much of anything or anyone. Like...I hate how people use the term 'vegetables.'"

And Stepdad was getting closer to the Businessman every moment. And all over the continent of Europe, countless girls, runaways and other vulnerable ones, drawing nearer to a fate they could not foresee, and would not see until it had them in their grasp and it was too late. And Rocket—not Racquel, Rocket—could die without ever knowing that her sister had escaped, and by now had hopefully arrived home.

Babydoll shut her eyes. _Rocket..._

_Blondie..._

_Amber._

"Babydoll?"

She opened her eyes. The woman still looked down at her, but the white doctor's smock was gone, and her expertly-painted face was streaked with tears. Madame Gorski wore a burgundy dress, and a few hairs had fallen out of place. She appeared to have aged ten years.

The girl herself sat on hard pavement, staring past Madame Gorski at the gates now standing open, and a new day dawning clear and blue. The air smelled faintly of smoke.

Madame offered the girl a hand, helped her up. "What happened here?"

Babydoll turned around to see the brothel. It was a charred ruin; the fire had done its work.

"At least you're okay." Madame touched Babydoll's arm. "After the High Roller—"

The girl recalled nothing after his initial blow. She wasn't sure what wanted to know. "Yes?"

"Went away in a huff, along with his whole entourage, the moment he saw the fire. The coward. Do you know what he said? 'I didn't pay so I could fight your fires for you." She folded her arms and snorted. "But by that time...the damage to you was done. I feared the worst. Especially since...after the others..." Her voice faltered.

Babydoll regarded the blackened, still-smoking hulk. The Fire Department never seemed to have showed; maybe this was the answer to some city officials' prayers, and they bid the accursed place Good Riddance. But the Mayor would be upset.

She dusted herself off and started toward the building.

"Babydoll! What are you doing?"

The girl reached the front door. It remained mostly intact, only charred, but hung askew on one hinge. She took the knob—it was still warm—wrenched the door aside and stepped into the building. The smell of smoke and burnt wood hit her nostrils. Stepping through the corridors, she retraced the path she and Sweet Pea had taken. The temperature shot up hot enough to make sweat bead on her brow. Some doorways had collapsed into blackened rooms where embers still smouldered red.

"Babydoll!" Madame Gorski caught up with her. "Please. It's not safe."

"I need to see them."

She stopped at the dressing room door. _Was_ at one time a dressing room for exotic, sequined dancers; now it was a morgue. The door, somehow, had escaped any burning, only bubbles where the paint had melted.

Madame was pale. "We must call the police." Evidently they hadn't come either.

"Madame Gorski." The girl's voice was like steel. "I need a few minutes alone. Please."

The woman shivered, nodded. "I'll be outside. Call if you need me." She left her footsteps clicking up the corridor and around the corner. She still wore her heels.

Babydoll took a deep breath. So little time, and no phonograph for music. She would just have to bring the accompaniment up in her head. And what song should she choose to bear her up and away? The Army Of Me song, or the song of the white rabbit, or the search & destroy number, or the one about tomorrow never knowing, or something else besides?

She selected her song. Swaying at first, then twirling and dancing, she began. As she moved, the music electricifying her being, the room changed...grew...expanded outward.

Now there was no more room, or brothel; it had grown with the patternless random frenzy of cancer cells, into a whole charred, burned-out city. Once it might have been a grand capital like ancient Rome, but now a conflagration had swept through it, scorched its monuments, toppled its grand buildings of marble, and left only a realm of ruins where none lived anymore.

Only those who no longer lived could be found here.

But she was not alone; to her right stood the gray-haired Wise Man. His hands were folded in front of him, dressed now in the snowy toga of a Roman Senator. His ancient eyes were dark with sadness, and he maintained the silence due a great place gutted and robbed of its life.

Babydoll broke the silence. "Is this hell?"

The Wise Man sadly smiled. "Not the one we've all heard about. Someone is trying to turn this place into it, someone who's enraged because he had power over others and got his own way in everything, and he lost all of it. Now he's lashing out, wanting to punish. He wants this," he motioned around the ruined city, "for everyone."

Babydoll looked down at her clothes. No temple robe, no glittery white dance outfit with which she had met the High Roller. Instead, she wore her dark sailor's tunic with the tan neckerchief and the flap in the back, the leather belt, and the miniskirt. Her right hand was wrapped in bandages, her samurai sword sheathed behind her back; and in the shoulder holster rested her pistol with the baubles strung to its grip.

Her mission clothes.

The Wise Man, anticipating her next question, said: "You'll have to get to that structure. It stands in the center of the city." He pointed. It could be seen perhaps for miles, but somehow Babydoll knew it had once towered far higher, a grand monument to achievement and civilization, now burned down to perhaps half its former height, its' frame twisted and blackened into a shape unsettlingly like that of a face, a discernable eyes and ragged mouth...and even a pencil mustache.

"You're not seeing things. That high spire is like his new body, and his mind and soul are inside of it. To do away with him forever, you have to destroy that spire."

The spire was some twenty stories up. How would she get there? Never mind—she would jump the whole distance if she had to, as she had leaped up on the demon-samurai's chest to shoot his eye out. Studying the tower's blackened ghost-face, pushing down the nausea it brought her, she reached over her shoulder, drew her sword, checked and re-sheathed it. Then she did the same with her pistol, but kept it in her hand.

"Oh...and one last thing."

Babydoll looked up at her mentor, who was holding out a pink card, like a credit card, but smooth, with no embossed numbers. She took it.

"Don't let anything surprise you."

Before she could ask, he was gone.


	4. Duel In The Ruins

_Song for this chapter: _The Metamorphosis Melody_ by Midnattsol (on YouTube)_

* * *

><p>Babydoll approached the tower.<p>

Bits of ash blew in the warm breeze. The air smelled of ash and scorched flesh. Skeletons lay scattered over the landscape, rib cages, leg and arm bones, gaping skulls. Babydoll gave silent thanks she hadn't been around when all this happened. If she had, could she have helped?

_When?_ she wondered, pistol at high ready. _When will I see someone living?_ Everywhere she looked, she saw death and ruins, archways that led nowhere, scattered fragments of marble. It already seemed like another lifetime since she'd seen a person walking, breathing, un-violated and alive.

The tower stood on the opposite side of a courtyard, about a hundred yards ahead. Other than the powdery gray ash that had settled everywhere, this area was uncluttered except for a gutted shell of a mansion to her right, running the length of the courtyard from her position to the tower. Its front had collapsed, littering part of the courtyard with rubble.

Something moved in Babydoll's peripheral vision. Instantly she snapped into firing position, feet apart, pistol raised and pointed at the tower's base.

The tower had no doors anymore, but four gaping, blackened maws, one stretching wider than the others, as if two or three doorways had collapsed into one. From this black hole, an armored man was emerging.

At first glance he appeared to be an eight-foot-tall Roman gladiator who had fought through the great fire of Rome, burned to death yet somehow still standing. His brass helmet covered his face with a visor of mesh, so that only his eyes could be seen glaring through, burning like white flares. They stared straight at her. Despite her stealth, it was plain he had known she was coming.

He possessed three arms, two in the normal places, the third sticking out his chest as if sewn there by a Latin forerunner of Victor Frankenstein. He still possessed two legs, but they tapered off into frayed ruins that could only stand by means of oversized iron scandals fastened with clamps. He wore no gloves; all three of his hands were blackened, half-burned away, and his third hand was but a collection of bones tied together by exposed sinews. Weak as this hand appeared, it was still able to clutch a wicked-looking mace, swinging it on its chain. The normal left hand held a red Roman _scutum_ shield, the right a broadsword like Sweet Pea's.

Babydoll stepped out into the courtyard.

Sword. Mace. But no firearms. _He must have known I was coming with a pistol, so why not pack a shotgun?_ Perhaps he preferred to chuck maces instead of bullets—that would still leave him the sword.

_Or else he's__..._

She whirled.

_...a diversion._

Behind her loomed two more gladiators, tall like the first one, charred, and studded with extra arms in unnatural places. They wore no visors, but showed blackened, skeletal faces with bared teeth and the same flare-eyes. Every one of their hands gripped a weapon: swords, maces and battleaxes like Kali armed for war. And sure enough one of those weapons _was_ a shotgun, being cocked with a _chick-chick_ sound.

Babydoll swept up her leg and kicked the shotgun in the muzzle. It jarred loose, swinging toward the other gladiator as it went off with a blast of fire. His chest blew apart in a black storm of bone and gristle. The rest of him flew back, hit the wall and crashed through it, rolling to a stop on the street beyond.

The girl drew her katana with a ringing sound, just in time to block a broadsword-slash by the surviving gladiator. Blades clashed with rapid-fire clangs as the girl backpedaled; the gladiator was bringing his size to bear, driving her back on her heels. With another arm he began whirling his mace above his head.

_His size..._ Dodging a thrust, she ducked between his legs, pulling her pistol as she did so. The gladiator turned to find himself staring down her gun barrel. Three shots and he fell with a rumble, raising a cloud of gray ash.

Babydoll drew a quick breath, katana in one hand and pistol in the other, a blond forelock dangling over one eye, appraising the unfolding scenario in the courtyard.

Gladiators were charging out of of the black maws at the base of the towers. She counted them as they appeared: one, two, three in addition to that first one. They came roaring, gargling and spitting, wielding swords and axes. Babydoll's heart quickened still more: the last two tugged a massive iron culverin on a wooden carriage, rolling it between them on two grinding, red-spoked wheels.

_Is that the plan? The mob's supposed to keep me busy until..._

Wait. The culverin. She could wheel it away from the tower, point it up at the spire. That was it!

She just had to take care of her opponents first...

Babydoll ran to where the second gladiator had fallen, grabbed his mace by its chain. It was as heavy as a bowling ball, but she hefted and swung it in a circle, sloppy at first, then tighter as it picked up speed.

The gladiators charged, roaring like a stadium crowd. Babydoll lunged forward, mace spinning. It struck the first gladiator's shield once, twice, finally knocking it from his hand. The next blow tore his exposed face, and the next after that sent an arm flying across the courtyard. No blood, only a shower of black ash. This all happened in less than two seconds. She finished the job with a mace-blow to the head that pulverized it past recognition, the gladiator staggering and finally collapsing to join his fallen comrades.

The next foe tried to duck under the mace. She adjusted its trajectory and caught him in the back—she'd aimed for his helmet—but the force slammed him face-first into the ground, and he did not get up again. When she got a chance she'd have to give him a _coup de grace_ with her pistol, just in case.

Another gladiator leaped into the air, his legs more powerful than they appeared, sailing over the arc of her whirling buzzsaw-mace. She let go of the mace—it flew across the courtyard and hit the first diversion-gladiator with a black explosion—and cartwheeled out of the way, avoiding the battleaxe he brought down with a _slam._

This one had six arms, the most of all the gladiators, and five of them brandished swords: a broadsword, a katana like her own, a curved Turkish scimitar, a saber, a cutlass. He bounded forward with a gargly roar, every sword slashing or spinning, a blur of metal.

Babydoll drew her pistol and fired at his head. No chance: the bullet rang off his scimitar, throwing sparks. She fired again, and again, but the advancing gladiator swatted away every bullet with a different sword.

The girl took off, running a wide circle around her blade-flashing foe to the first fallen gladiator, snatching up his _scutum_ shield as she passed. The enemy stampeded after her, about ten feet behind now; she could almost feel puffs of hot breath on the back of her neck. She flung the shield backward and high.

It flew at the gladiator's face, and he raised three blades to deflect it. The other two blades, he held at waist level. _That_ was what Babydoll needed. She threw herself off the ground, revolving her body to face him, raised her pistol with both hands, and shot him in the right knee.

The foe wore a breastplate and shin guards, but nothing protected his knee, and the girl's aim was true. The bullet severed his leg in two. With a roar more of frustration than pain, he fell on his face, the scimitar and the cutlass flying from his grip. By the time he hit the ground, the girl had her katana out. One slash took off his head.

Babydoll straightened up, breath going in and out, relaxing her muscles. The courtyard was littered with fallen gladiators, the air hazy with ash slowly settling.

She sheathed her katana and eyed her prize, the culverin. Treading carefully, she approached it, stepping over a sprawled body.

Wait-someone else was approaching. She ran lightly to her mace, which lay among the blackened, scattered remains of a foe, and picked it up.

The new arrivals, shuffling out of the dark maw of the entrance, came into view.

Babydoll's eyes went wide. The mace thudded to the ground beside her.

_Oh, no._

The Wise Man's words came back to her: _No one can exist here, no one who's living._

These were not gladiators. They wore no helmets, and carried no shields. One was a sandy-haired girl, the other two raven-haired princesses, or they had been when she knew them. They needed no armor, for Babydoll could never, ever strike a blow against them. They had fought through fire and hell together, and were as close to her as her sister.

_Rocket!_ she wanted to cry. _Blondie! Amber!_ Her body trembled. She had seen them die, all three of them, and maybe should have been ready for this, but some things simply couldn't be prepared for. Warrior she was, but human too, and nothing could ever change that.

They even wore the same mission clothes! But their faces wore the lifeless deadpan of mannequins, eyes white flares like those of the gladiators (and the demon samurai before them). They drifted into position around the culverin, Amber to its left, Blondie on its right, and Rocket behind it, holding a sizzling torch Babydoll hadn't seen until now. The torch threw off sparks.

Babydoll walked backward, shaking her head. She bit her lip, fighting back tears. _No!_ What was she supposed to _do?_ "Girls!" she cried.

Rocket responded by touching the torch to the culverin's fuse. The cannon went off with a roar. Babydoll dove to the ground, tasting ash. There went her weapon. The shell exploded somewhere behind her.

_Get up, get up!_ For her old comrades not only wore their old clothes; they also carried all their old weapons.

Babydoll sprang to her feet and ran for the nearest doorway. She reached it as someone fired a machine gun, raking the doorway with shots that kicked up puffs of ash.

_What's the matter?_ The damned voice taunted her. She did not know if it was just a hateful memory, or if the thing in the spire was getting inside her head._ Did you lose your fight? Huh?_

The girl flattened herself against the wall, trying desperately to think. The Wise Man—what would he say about this? Had he any idea that this would happen? Better yet, what would he _do?_

Wait. Hadn't he given her...

She jammed a hand into her shirt pocket, took out the card. She turned it this way and that. It was just a _card_ for crying out loud, what in the hell was it supposed to do?

More shots barked from the courtyard. They sounded closer; her comrades were advancing. She looked up toward the spire, though she couldn't see it from here—damn him! Did he have to control their every move even now? Was that it?

Anyway—she turned the card over. She gasped. There, on its green back, was a pink, cheery bunny rabbit, buck teeth showing, ears raised.

_The bunny mech!_

It was here? Think, think. It _had_ to be, or the Wise Man wouldn't have given her this. The key. Hadn't she seen Amber use it once? Maybe; she couldn't recall. But she had to find the machine before Amber did—that girl could probably hot-wire it. Did that freak up in the spire even know about it?

But _where was it?_

Babydoll stole back the way she came, through the gutted building and out into the street, glancing both ways. The mech was taller than most of the buildings here, there _had_ to be some clue...

More shouts rang out behind her.

The tallest structure she could see, other than the spire, was another mansion, the largest residence in sight; it might have been the emperor's palace in better times. Though charred, it stood reasonably intact, and lay at the end of the street she was on.

She took off, weaving in and out of wrecked buildings, leaping over bones and debris. At one point she glimpsed something flashing out of the corner of her eye. She ducked just as a hatchet, heart stamped on its blade, flew by and buried itself with a _thunk_ in a wall. "Blondie!" she hissed under her breath.

But now she had reached the building. Part of it actually had collapsed, a wall that adjoined it to the remains of the villa where she now stood. The collapsed wall had left a mountain of rubble, its dust still drifting in the air. She raced up to the top of the rubble-heap and looked down into the palace.

_Yes!_

The mech crouched in the middle of the ruined, roofless building, arms lowered, its olive green chassis dirty with dust, but the bunny grinning as if to say, _Hey! You didn't think I'd miss this, did you?_

_Not a chance,_ Babydoll thought, racing down the heap of rubble, kicking loose bits of marble. She stopped between the mech's hunched legs, card in hand, and searched for its slot—there, right below its double doors. She reached up and inserted the card.

Nothing happened.

Cursing, she withdrew it and slid it back in the other way. Instantly the mech responded with a whir. The doors began to part, but much too slowly. And no ladder...she leaped up between the doors, wriggled in between them, and fell into the bucket seat.

The three pursuers came into view, climbing to the top of the rubble pile. Amber held her pistol, the other two submachine guns.

Babydoll grabbed the two handgrips, thumbed the door control. The doors reversed, closing with a heavy _clunk_ as bullets riddled the outside. The interior smelled of sweat and leather, lighting up with blue and white readings and displays.

_Let's do this._

She tripped the booster buttons. A roar shook the cockpit and a terrific G-force threw her back in the seat. She gasped for breath—_how did Amber ever do this?_

Never mind. She was airborne, high above the city. Smoke rose up from numerous places around it; evidently the fires weren't all out yet. And far below, unprotected, lay that damned spire.

She eased the mech downward, raising the its arms with their bolted-on guns.

The jagged blue lines on her heads-up display, representing the spire, grew until they dominated the panel. Babydoll switched off the safety and watched two white crosshairs flash onto the screen. The fiend's mouth, and especially his burning eyes, were plain to see. She could even make out his mustache. The mouth was rapidly moving. She didn't have to hear it to know what he was saying; the man had never known any form of communication save abuse.

Babydoll's fingers moved to the triggers.

"Blue—shut up."

All the mech's guns fired at once. A storm of depleted-uranium shells exploded from their barrels. And in the millisecond before they shredded and pulverized the spire into black dust, the girl thought she heard, from far off, a man screaming.

* * *

><p>Babydoll set the mech down in the courtyard, crunching the corpse of a gladiator. The mech's guns smoked, and the heat of their firing had raised the cockpit temperature ten degrees. The girl was bathed in sweat, wiping her brow with her bandaged right hand. She opened the doors and let the refreshing cool air wash in. Now spent shells, as well as the city's wreckage, littered the street.<p>

Are they back? Are they normal again? Maybe she could close the doors back up, and scan the area electronically...

"Rocket?" She leaned out. "Blondie? Amber?" She looked here, there—

_There!_ They were running up the street like excited little girls, faces and eyes alive. "Baby!" _"Baby!"_

Rocket reached the mech, looked up at her comrade who was relaxing and enjoying the breeze. "Could you tell us what happened? The last I knew I was on the train, waiting for..."

"No time. Climb aboard, ladies. We're needed!"

The three stepped onto the mech's feet, held fast to its mechanical ankles.

"Say, Baby?" Amber lacked her garrison cap; somewhere along the way it had come off. "Maybe you should let me drive—"

Babydoll laughed, clapped the doors shut and tripped the boosters. The mech shot skyward, past the ruined, smouldering tower, away from the smoke and the wreckage of the city.

_Let you drive? No way!_ She gripped the controls like a a girl who'd scored the most amazing horse on the merry-go-round. _It's not every day I get to do this!_

* * *

><p>Back in the brothel, Babydoll slowed her dance, lowered her arms, and came to a stop. She panted for breath, bathed in sweat, smelling again the smoke and melted paint.<p>

Beside her stood Madame Gorski, gaping at her like she belonged...well, in an asylum. "What in the world are you doing?"

The girl, smiling contentedly, took the door by the knob and threw it open.

_"Babydoll—!"_ The cry caught in Madame Gorski's throat.

There in the room stood three tousled, dazed girls. Rocket's eyes found Babydoll, widened in recognition. "Baby?"

"Welcome back, ladies—"

They all ran forward and crushed her in a hug.

* * *

><p>"Emily."<p>

At the sound of her birth name, Babydoll opened her eyes.

The raw fluorescent light of the doctor's office had returned, and with it the bespectacled Dr. Gorski in her white coat. She wore exactly the same expression as in the brothel. The girl herself wore her hospital pajamas; the doctor had sent someone to her home, in hopes of persuading the police to give up some of the girl's own clothes.

"Yes?" asked Babydoll with perfect innocence.

Dr. Gorski sat down on the edge of her desk, adjusted her glasses. "I got a call from the infirmary, just a minute ago."

"All right."

"And I just have this feeling...strictly between you and me, you understand...that you had something to do with it."

"With what, doctor?" Babydoll sat on her bed, propping herself up on her hands. "I haven't heard anything."

"Well—the patient with the knife wound—you'll recall you helped her sister to escape—"

"Yes?"

"There seems to be no wound now. A scar, yes, but otherwise she's fine."

"That's good news."

"And the other two patients, the comatose ones? They're awake. They regained consciousness, just like you regained consciousness. They're undergoing tests now, but there appears to be no brain damage. None at all." The doctor looked hard at her patient.

"So what makes you think I had anything to do with it, Dr. Gorski?"

The doctor waved her off. "I don't know. It's crazy. I guess this is the right place for that, yes? Don't tell anyone about it, or they might lock _me_ up. But I can't shake the feeling that you, my dear, know something the rest of us don't."

"Doctor." The girl gave her a gentle smile. "I think you have an overactive imagination."

* * *

><p><strong><em>Author's note: I hope you're enjoying the continued exploits of our heroines. If you liked it, please review so I'll know you read it. Thanks! <em>****_—Doug_**


	5. This Is How It's Gonna Go

Emily bid Dr. Gorski a hasty goodbye.

"My dear." The doctor looked at her patient in that puzzled way she seemed to be using more and more often. "The police will need your house for at least another day. You're free to stay or leave, of course, but—where would you go?"

Emily threw a reply over her shoulder and slipped through the door, clicking it shut behind her.

Dr. Gorski removed her glasses, folded her arms.

"Did I understand that girl correctly? Did she say something like...'the war room?'"

* * *

><p>Babydoll closed the office door and hurried up a dark tunnel, lit at intervals by fluorescent strips placed at intervals on the ceiling. After a minute she emerged into a wide space illuminated by data maps stretching floor to ceiling, depicting all the continents and oceans of the world in jigsaw-lights of red, blue and green.<p>

Four figures stood silhouetted against the maps. All turned as she entered. One of them gave an exasperated sigh. "There she is, finally! What took you so long?"

Babydoll smiled. "Nice to see you too, Rocket." Always spoiling for action, that girl.

"Heads up, you two." Blondie. "Here he comes."

A familiar figure was walking out of the darkness. As he came into the light, Babydoll saw he was wearing green uniform of an Army General, four stars on each collar and six rows of ribbons, holding tucked under his arm a combination cap with gold "scrambled eggs" on the bill.

The General stopped in front of the girls, acknowledged each with a nod. "Welcome back, ladies. It's good to see you again."

"Thank you." Amber sucked on a lollipop that she had somehow scrounged, even in this place.

"Good to see you, too." Blondie, thank goodness, appeared rosy and unblemished, as if she and Amber had never been-_but let's forget that now,_ Babydoll thought. _Never think of that again._

"What's on our dance card for today?" Rocket scanned over the electonic maps, looking no doubt for trouble spots.

Babydoll had to giggle. _Miss One-Track Mind, that's you! If your sister were here she'd at least try to rein you in, but of course she wouldn't get very far..._

"Baby?" Rocket shot her a glance. "What's so funny?"

"Oh, nothing, nothing. Sorry, everyone." She put a hand to her mouth.

"Ladies," said the General, "welcome to NORAD. What you see here," he indicated the map, "is the world as it is today. Intact, relatively untroubled. That'll change if our friend the Ruler has his way."

"How's that?" asked Blondie.

"Our intelligence tells us he's just purchased thirteen thermonuclear missiles. Each of those missiles has four independently-targetable warheads of twenty megatons each. Right now his flagship is carrying them across the Atlantic, back to his home country, where he plans to load them into launchers and loose them on an unsuspecting Europe."

"What does he hope to get out of this?" Amber, like Rocket, studied the map.

"That's unclear at this time. The only thing we know for certain is that it'll be what we've all been dreading since the end of World War II: thermonuclear holocaust."

"How do we get to them?" Rocket cradled her M-16.

"First," said the General, "We need the entire team. For count on this, ladies: it's going to take each and every one of you to bring this enemy down. On your last mission, you needed five items to accomplish your goal. What you'll need now is five people."

Yes, Babydoll thought. Five. Herself, Rocket, Blondie, Amber, and...

"Sweet Pea," Rocket finished. "She'd never want to miss this! She'd never let me hear the end of it."

"Where can we find her?" Blondie pulled back her machine gun bolt.

"A kind old bus driver gave her a ride back to her and Rocket's home, in Fort Wayne, Indiana." (Babydoll's brow creased—_Why did he smile when he said that?)_

"Really!" Rocket raised her eyebrows. Blondie's and Amber's pretty faces softened to match the General's. She had made it out. Sweet Pea had made it out, for all of them.

"That's the good news." The General returned to business. "Now here's the bad news. The Ruler seems to have ways of knowing everything. Fortunately, so do we. He's dispatching an armed squad to Fort Wayne as we speak."

"What?" Rocket's voice could have pierced steel.

"What are they exactly?" Babydoll was curious, but at the same time, she pictured a dozen possible answers and dreaded all of them.

"Officially they're called 'enhanced gunmen.' When the moon is full, their modifications take effect. People who've seen it say it's terrifying."

"What's their ETA?" asked Babydoll.

"They should be arriving in the area as we speak." Spoken very matter-of-factly.

"General!" Rocket was pale. "Why did you wait until now? How are we supposed to get there in time?"

"That's what's next. If you'll all follow me..." He started across the war room's waxed floor, his shoes making a soft clicks. The girls hastened after him.

"What are they planning to do with Sweet Pea?" Rocket's voice rang out and echoed in the mountain cavern.

The General turned to face her. "Let's just say you'll want to get there stat."

Amber, garrison cap tilted on her head, spoke up. "Whatever it is, _I'm_ the pilot. No offense, Baby." She grinned around her lollipop.

"Not to worry." The General stopped by a door like a bank vault's.

Blondie leaned forward. "What's behind there?"

The General tapped several buttons on a keypad beside the door. "This is NORAD, Blondie."

"So?" Rocket fairly bounced on her feet.

The old man grinned. "It's a silo. This one contains a Minuteman LGM-30A intercontinental ballistic missile."

The door rumbled open.

* * *

><p>The Minuteman's nuclear warheads had been removed; it now packed conventional explosives whose yield was measured in kilotons. Behind the warhead, a cockpit had been installed, and in it, four bucket flight seats: one in front, three behind.<p>

The green missile stood at attention in clouds of drifting steam. A grated catwalk led across the chasm to its open hatch, through which the warriors crawled one at a time, squeezing into their seats.

"Those are ejection seats," the General called from the across the chasm as the catwalk withdrew. "That's important."

"Nice." Amber, appearing not at all fazed by by the cockpit's bewildering array of switches, dials and gauges, took the half-wheel in one hand and the throttle in the other, pushing it slowly forward. A rumble started far below. The entire cockpit shook, trembling the girls in their seats. The cockpit door began to swing slowly closed.

"The mission is simple," the General shouted over the noise. "Destroy the enemy before they can act. And one more thing—don't forget to fasten your seat belts!"

The door closed and locked. The rumble grew into a roar.

The missile lifted in a storm of white smoke, cleared the silo, and streaked skyward, trailing yellow fire.


	6. Fear The Moon

Across the fields of Indiana, the men moved. They spilled out of transports, armored vehicles strung together into trackless trains that could navigate over mountains or through swamps, until they numbered five thousand.

They wore uniforms of black and silver, marking them under an identical flag, but showed none of the trained grace of ninjas or special forces. They clambered like frat boys painting the town red, or endeavoring to play some sly practical joke like tipping someone's cow in a pasture. They had learned not to care if anyone saw or noticed them. In the presence of their fearsome boss, they would have marched in tight ranks with grim faces, but tonight he was far away on his ship. They laughed, bantered, swapped corporate stories and family anecdotes.

"Well, it looks like I'm finally getting that promotion."

"What do you think I should get for Juliet? It's our second anniversary."

"The weirdest people just moved in next door to us! I got a good look at them while mowing the lawn."

"So who's it gonna be in the World Series, New York or Boston?"

"What do you say we take a long vacation after this? Go camping up in the mountains?"

"Hawaii sounds better."

"Hold on, you two. Do you think he'll let you?"

"He might! He let Dave take one last month!"

"Yeah, and now everybody and his pet dog is putting in for time off. He'll put the stop on that real quick. You know him."

"Hell, man, ya gotta hope! You never know."

"Hey, hey!" Someone pointed. "The moon's coming out!"

The men all reacted to this like boys informed that it was Christmas morning and time to tear open their presents. Abandoning any remaining pretense at discipline, even the captains and officers among them, they leaped and stormed over the fields, shouting with delight. Some grumbled, "it's about time!"

Their transformation began.

The "Fangs," as they were called, underwent certain procedures, modifications to their bodies. The senior ones had been altered the most, their blood infused with steroids that fevered their growth when the moon showed its shining face. The newer ones got only the basics: the installation of brass saber-toothed fangs hidden in their upper jawbones, and invisible ink in their eyes that flared flame-yellow at the sight of the moon, as well as innumerable new follicles like pinpricks from head to toe, invisible to even their innocent unsuspecting wives until the Earth's lunar satellite waxed to full brightness and sprouted the course chestnut hair that, along with the fangs snapping into view, the yellow eyes flashing, and the wicked talons snapping from their fingertips, completed the exhilirating transition into beasts, their secret inner selves bursting forth to realize a hundred cruel fantasies.

And now a great roar rose up in the countryside. The army writhed, screamed, flung themselves to the tilled earth or howled at the sky.

"Weapons, weapons!" shouted one exasperated werewolf, possibly the only one out of the entire five thousand to keep his head.

The newly-transformed behemoths flocked to their transports to collect the first of their Christmas presents: medieval broadswords and Soviet AK-47 assault rifles for the senior Fangs, handguns, sabers and shields for the bestial club's junior members.

"Let's go!" screamed the Commander. He towered above the rest at eight feet, six inches, pointed ears sticking out each side of the shaggy blond lion's mane now crowning his head, and whose claws curved like pirate's hooks. He wore a bandolier slung from shoulder to waist, a Bowie knife clipped to his belt, and a .357 Magnum. His "armor-bearer," a junior Fang who'd been stuck with the job, carried extra ammunition and an olive-drab Army issue rocket launcher.

"All this for one broad?" the armor bearer grumbled, hefting the bazooka. The ammunition boxes he carried strapped to his back.

"Who cares?" shouted a Fang running by. "It's an excuse to party, man!" The Fang bounded on with a whoop.

The Commander looked over his shoulder at the armor-bearer struggling with all the cargo. "Officially it's for one broad," he slobbered as he spoke, "but off the record? Hell, man, the whole town is ours! Once the mission's done—and that ought to take, like, one minute—we'll wipe the streets with these hicks! The advance scouts say they got some pretty daughters, too. This is your first mission, Ted. You'll see real quick what it's like. And once you've experienced it, take it from me, you're hooked!"

The armor-bearer lugged the rocket launcher with both hands, tottering after the Commander. "Thanks, Uncle Jim. Ha-ha!" He howled, joining the growing chorus of Fangs serenading the moon. "Can't wait!"

The Fangs stormed across the fields, screaming, waving swords and guns, ready to introduce Fort Wayne, Indiana to the ways of tenth-century Viking marauders.

* * *

><p><em>Much thanks to those reading &amp; reviewing. For those following the story, please review so I'll know you read it. Thanks!<em>

_Doug_


	7. The Girls Vs The Fangs, Part I

Something flashed across the bright moon, eclipsing it for just an instant.

The Commander glanced up. His enhanced ears detected a steady rumble which was gaining in volume a little too quickly. Looking up, he could make out something trailing fire and blazing down from an impossible height.

"What's that?" His armor-bearing nephew squinted up at it.

The Commander zoomed in with his jacked-up eyes. An ICBM? Switching to night vision, he saw a splash of color on the missile's nose. Someone had added artwork: a woman in black leather, one hand brandishing a sword,the other holding severed, gas-mask wearing head. Letters across the bottom spelled out in elegant script, "Sweet Pea."

And above her head, emblazoned in red and black capitals, was: YOU'LL DIE HAPPY.

"Uncle Jim?" the armor-bearer asked. "Why'd you just cuss?"

A puff of white burst from the missile, followed by a dark speck sailing out away from it. Three others followed.

And the missile was roaring down fast—

The commander shouted and threw himself to the ground.

The missile detonated with the thunder of doomsday. It threw the commander into the air, where he hung suspended for a surreal eternity before the ground slammed his back, knocking the wind from his still-human lungs. Heat stung his skin. Looking up through swimming eyes, he saw a red-yellow fireball mushrooming up, lighting the midwestern sky bright as noon. Dirt, grass, and pieces of his men flew back and forth in the glare. Something warm hit his head and fell to the ground. He put a hand to his head; it came away wet. A hairy arm, lying at his feet, still wearing its studded wrist guard.

Now the four objects that had shot out of the missile descended into view. Just like he'd suspected, they were crewmen. He zoomed in—crew-_women._They soared down without parachutes, four of them, landing one after another on their feet. They all crouched on one knee, fists to the ground. And all of them—the brunette with the goggles, the Asian chick in the fishnets, the sandy-haired one with the field nurse's headgear, and the blonde in front—looked like they meant business. His eyes scanned and detected pistols, swords, M-16's.

The Commander felt no fear or dismay, only anger that no one had given him or his army any heads-up that they might encounter this kind of opposition. Or _any_ opposition, for that matter. He gnashed his shark-teeth. Who were these people?

Well they were going to find out who _he_ and his people were, real fast.

"Ted," he growled.

"Here!" His nephew sprang up, his hair singed, but otherwise intact.

"Take the rocket launcher, and get two more from my vehicle. Issue those to two survivors and get to the target's house and blow it to bits. Blow it _to hell,_ you understand? I want you to hit it like that missile hit us! The rest of us will punish the Amazons."

His eyes scanned the area as he spoke, detecting Fangs who were still alive, noting those still functional and those who lay bleeding or torn up with no further use. Others staggered about in a daze.

In five seconds the scan was done, the math worked out in his ringing head. Out of the five thousand Fangs, less than a hundred remained who were still in good enough shape to carry out the mission, stamping, seething and ready to kick some serious Amazon butt.

Fangs used no battle strategies, followed no plans. Their one standing strategy was: _Kill'Em All, Let God Sort Them Out._

He gave his nephew a shove to send him on his way, then drew himself up to his full eight-foot height.

"Fangs!" he shouted in a roar that echoed off the distant hills, that could be heard for more than a mile, and leveled a finger at the intruders.

"ATTACK!"


	8. The Girls Vs The Fangs, Part II

Babydoll, straightening up, heard the Commander's cry. So that lion-maned, goblin-eared mutant still remained—that was grave news. She had hoped that the missile would take out the Fangs' leader and scatter the survivors into so many mindless, directionless ants.

"Baby. Look."

Rocket, to her left, pointed. Three Fangs were sprinting off into the night, toward the town, balancing rocket launchers on their shoulders. A fourth one led them.

"Go after them." Babydoll drew her katana. "Amber, go with her. Blondie and I will handle the rest." Rocket and Amber took off.

Fangs came out of the night: first a few, then a dozen, then more until they numbered about fifty—armored werewolves whose drool trickeled down their breastplates, waving pistols and rifles and swords, howling and roaring. They advanced in a line, curving inwards at both ends.

Trying to surround us, Babydoll thought. She nodded at Blondie, who nodded back. The two dashed off in opposite directions.

The closest Fang, thin as an emaciated werewolf, fired his Smith & Wesson at Babydoll. She deflected it with a quick, clanging forehand slash of her blade. Another shot banged, then another also deflected: _Clang! Clang!_

While the first Fang kept her busy, another one, like a hybrid man and polar bear, circled around and pulled a machine pistol from under his leather vest, coughing out ragged laughs.

Something whirled through the air and struck him in the back of the head, cleaving his helmet. He roared and toppled forward. Blondie's hatchet stuck in his skull, soaking his white hair crimson.

With a cry Blondie leaped forward, pulling her hatchet from his skull and at the same time kicking another oncoming Fang in the teeth. Another raised a Luger and got his hand slashed off. Like a whirlwind the girl in goggles flashed from foe to foe, splitting skulls, kicking jaws, and socking one with a haymaker as he stood with guns in each hand, studying them as if deciding which one to use.

Babydoll sized up the situation, counting every roaring, hissing, teeth-baring face. Three of them foamed at the mouth; perhaps this was another privilege granted with rank, some button behind the ear you could push to gush out the foam.

Now Fangs charged Babydoll, brandishing serrated-blade swords or drawn pistols, some modern handguns, others antiques of wood and brass. They ran as if not even noticing that this opponent packed a pistol of her own and a samurai katana. Probably trying to intimidate her with numbers and bravado; that seemed to be their normal modus operandi.

_Fine with me!_ She slashed off one's pistol-pointing arm, shot another twirling a battleaxe over his head. His face shattered, letting go of his axe. She ducked as it flew spinning over her head.

Finally, the horde began to thin out.

All right. she let out a breath, allowed herself a moment to relax. Blondie ran up, holding her bloodied ax high as a warning, if any Fangs still possessed the reason to heed it. The two girls stood back to back.

An engine clattered nearby. Babydoll, Blondie glanced in its direction.

The lion-maned commander was back. He stood on top of a boxy halftrack, holding something like a black fire hose attached to its side. He flashed a wicked grin.

"Worn out yet?" he shouted.

His hairy hand gripped a handle on the nozzle.

"Fight this!"

Flame erupted from the nozzle. Babydoll and Blondie scattered. the torrent of yellow liquid fire immolated the dry grass where the two had been an instant before, turning it into a cracking inferno.

The commander swung the hose about, still shooting flame, catching some of his own men in the process and not seeming to care. He laughed, howled at the moon as the Fangs screamed, flailed and ran until they fell, burning in scattered pyres. Babydoll dove behind a clump of rocks as the flame caught up to her, huddled tight, covering her head. The fire roared, the temperature shot up what seemed like a hundred degrees, stinging her skin. In an instant she was bathed in sweat. The air stank of torched flesh.

Babydoll peered over the top of a boulder, squinting through smoke. The grass all around the rocks smouldered and burned. That accursed commander's arc of flame was sweeping now toward Blondie, who ran for all she was worth, hatchet in hand. A Fang tried to pounce on Blondie as she flew by; she felled him with a blow of her blade.

Beyond Blondie, Babydoll could make out, in the glow of the ceasless jet of flame, two other glinting metal vehicles, more like armored personnel carriers than cars. The commander still howled, laughed, by all appearances having a super time.

Babydoll slunk away the burning ground—thank God for the cool breeze—and for a moment met Blondie's eyes across the way. Blondie nodded. Then she disappeared.

Babydoll sprinted for the Commander, pulling her pistol as she went.

The Commander snapped his head around. "Well." No surprise, at least none that he let show. His flame-yellow eyes fell on her drawn pistol, which she was now raising.

"Think again, Supergirl!"

He swung the hose around and, with a screeching laugh, pulled back the handle.

The jet of flame shot toward Babydoll at a speed almost too fast to track. She launched herself into the air, executing a horizontal spin as the flame roared beneath her, legs together, arms folded tight against her chest. She alighted on both feet, the flame that had missed her shooting onward and away. She could feel the earth's heat through her shoes.

The commander said nothing, spat out no comment or taunt or anything at all. Instead, he adjusted his aim and slammed back the handle again.

Babydoll had never stopped moving. She cartwheeled and bounded high, the new flame-jet singing a few blond hairs. She landed on both feet again and dropped to one knee, chest moving in and out, panting for breath.

"Ha!" The commander slobbered, holding to his smoking nozzle. "Out of breath? Can't manage another fancy move? Face it, _biache,_" he spat, "You're mine!"

Babydoll straightened up, and...smiled.

That brought a puzzled look from the Commander, the humanity showing through his hair monster-face for an instant. Then he bared his teeth, snarled, and raised the hose.

"No. You're ours!"

It was not the Commander who said this. He glanced over his shoulder. One of the armored personnel carriers hurtled over the grass toward him, and at the wheel sat Blondie. She leaped out.

The Commander did the unthinkable: he panicked. His hands pulled the trigger and splashed the oncoming vehicle in flames, setting it alight but not doing a thing to slow it down.

He dropped the hose, raised his hands to his face. Babydoll dove for cover.

And then it was all over the for the Commander.

* * *

><p>Babydoll got up, shaking off dizziness. She was certain her ears would ring for a long time. The blackened remains of the two mangled vehicles combined into a tall, crackling pyre that might have been visible from the next county. "Blondie?"<p>

"Over here."

The two girls met. A third person met them also, a Fang, staggering amongst his fallen brethren littering the charred, smoking battlefield. He saw the two and froze, eyes wide.

"D-don't hurt me! I'm going, I'm going!" He turned and ran.

The two girls turned their attention toward the town, toward their comrades and the Fang squad sent after their last unaccounted-for comrade.

"Let's go." Babydoll clicked a fresh clip into her pistol. "Rocket and Amber might need help."

Blondie nodded. They ran.


	9. What's In A Name

_Author's note: Thanks to those who've read & reviewed! I appreciate you following the story. Ariadne, we go a bit into Rocket's history with this chapter..._

* * *

><p>"There they are." Rocket.<p>

"I see them."

Rocket and Amber stole from rocks to trees, watching the shaggy goon squad that yelled and shouted and careened along in their rattling armored transport. Didn't they care if anyone heard them?

The girls flattened themselves against the trunks of two maples.

"What are they trying to do?" Rocket peered around to see the vehicle. It had stopped by a gurgling stream, the party jumping out. "Wake the whole town?"

"I think we already did that." Amber knelt close to the ground. "They seem like the types who like to blow their horns."

"You see that house, there, with the lights on?" Rocket nodded toward it. "That's our house. Where we grew up."

It stood by itself at the end of a dirt lane. Trees bordered it on three sides, a wooded area that stretched around behind it in the shape of a U. Only the front opened to the rest of the world, unobstructed. Lots of places in those trees to plant rocket launchers. The hairy Fangs set quickly to work, skirting through the woods, setting up three tripods aimed at the house's right side, left side and the back. When fired, they would intersect with a detonation Rocket didn't want to think of. She recognized the launcher design: a high end bazooka, the type used to pierce bunker walls. She knew well what it would do to the modest two-story residence she had called home in her girlhood.

"Whatever we do," said Amber, "we need to do it fast."

Rocket was studying the nearest neighbor's house. It was a three-story mansion with a high cupola, predating the Civil War and badly in need of renovation, slumping at the head of the street about a hundred yards away. It marked where countryside ended and suburb began, the other newer homes trailing off behind it. Even in her youth it been an ancient, creaking relic, when the kids used to dare each other to go up and knock.

"Amber." She pointed toward it. "Follow me."

She started off, her comrade hurrying after her.

As they approached the place, Amber took Rocket's arm and pulled her back. "Someone's there."

Rocket hunched down, squinted; then her eyes opened wide.

Amber watched this, looked toward the dark, hunched-over shape standing in the tall unmown grass of the front yard, then back at Rocket. "What?"

But now the shape—a man—had seen them. He jerked up straight as if touched with a live wire. With one hand he leaned on a cane; with the other he shaded his eyes. "I. Don't. Believe it. Rocket! Is that you?"

"Yes, Mr. Chopper! It's me!" She ran up to him, crashing through the grass, Amber on her heels.

The man was rather small; both girls were taller than him. A few white strands of hair remained on his head. His eyes seemed too big and too fierce for his face, which was old and wrinkled enough to be a mummy's; but they burned with a fire that even death probably couldn't put out. His whole body was aging, wasting away except for the eyes, which would probably remain after the rest of him was gone, two burning orbs of St. Elmo's Fire hovering by themselves.

"Well, well, well." He looked her over, grinning; only a few teeth remained. "I knew one day you'd finally come home!"

"So you know each other," Amber said.

The man chuckled. "Oh yes. She didn't bolt fast enough after knocking on my door all those years ago. Just that one time, mind, I was faster than her!"

"He gave me the grand tour, sort of," said Rocket, "after he got me to calm down. For an older guy, he had a grip like a vise."

"It was my pleasure. I knew her for a kindred spirit the moment I clapped eyes on her! And—" he stepped back, scrutinized each of the warriors in turn. "Good heavens, look at you! I'm keeping back." And he did back up a few steps, tottering on his cane. "My word, Rocket! Did you join the French Foreign Legion?"

"Um...something like that."

"Sir." Amber broke in. "Those people over there. They're targeting Rocket's home, her sister—"

"They are?" He squinted, trying to see through the dark. "I got a good look at them, after that ungodly blast woke me up. I'm guessing you had something to do with that?"

Rocket nodded.

"A motley-looking crowd, aren't they?" Chopper cackled. "Like a bad werewolf movie. Patton would have gotten a kick out of them, before running them over. Whatever do they want with your house?"

"My sister. She joined the Foreign Legion too, kind of."

"She did! Well! I commend you both!"

Rocket had been the first (and likely the only one) to see the inside of this man's amazing house. No visitors ever seemed to come or go.

The place was a genuine museum, a memorial to all who were called to the defense of free nations, and part armory as well. The ten-year-old girl soon lost count of all the rifles, grenades, anti-tank rockets and sidearms he displayed on his walls; she suspected he didn't have the proper licenses for most of them, and would get in serious trouble if the law ever found out. In his basement he kept an Army jeep with all the markings, although how he'd gotten it down there she could never guess—he must have assembled it part by part in that cellar. In one room he kept an array of every kind of model and corresponding ribbon the Army awarded its heroes. And in the kitchen, besides the refrigerator full of beers and Chinese delivery that he seemed to live on ("reminds me of Chennault's Flying Tigers,") he kept six canisters of C-rations, and gave her a taste. Awful—she giggled.

"I was born for battle," he'd said to his child visitor. "If you saw my spirit, girl, free and unfettered, it would look like Atlas, ten feet tall with the strength of a battalion! But Lady Luck did not smile on me. I got a frail body that tired and sickened easily, no good for service. So I took to collecting instead. As you can see, it's been quite a hobby. My goal is to procure a true, live atomic bomb like Little Boy or Fat Man—not that I would ever set it off, of course.

"Oh, by the way—what's your name, girl?"

She paused. "Racquel."

"The way you said that sounded like you'd been sucking on a lemon."

Another pause. "Well...I don't like it too much."

And she'd never realized this until now. "Racquel" was a dainty little thing, hurrying through the school halls hugging her books and head down, for bullies taunted her with the regularity of a clock. Her older sister showed little patience for her, this pixie who burst so easily into tears, whom the sister had to go out of her way to protect. Racquel, Racquel!

"Oh?" Chopper stooped down, balancing on his cane, to look her directly in the eye. "I wonder if, just as I got the wrong body, you got the wrong name. I have an idea. I've seen you around, you know. On some days, when I'm going out to my mailbox, or standing on the porch paying the Chinese food deliveryman, I see you kids romping and running about. My word, girl! You're faster than anyone! Like a rocket, I thought. How's that for a name?"

The girl's face lit up. The nickname brought a slew of images and thoughts with it, all good. _Rocket! I'm Rocket!_

Now, even with the Fangs about to blast her house, she could not help but grin.

Chopper said to Amber: "I heard soon afterward, that the school and this neighborhood had become bully-free zones. Seems they'd learned to fear someone, very quickly." He chuckled with satisfaction.

(However, Rocket left one thing unmentioned from that day long ago. She'd also brought up her sister to Chopper. "If you saw me, you must have seen her too."

"Which one's she?" Rocket described her. "Ah. Yes. Um, well, she doesn't strike me as tough at all, that one. if I gave her a nickname, it'd be more like 'Sweet Pea.'"

"Sweet Pea?" Rocket was aghast. "If I ever called her that, she'd flatten me! No way would she ever go by that name!")

"So anyway!" The old man stepped back, squinting through the dark. "Look at you girls! Whatever are you...ah...those aren't exactly Army-issue uniforms..."

Rocket was sure the old man was blushing. "Are you blushing, Mr. Chopper?"

"I am not!" he sputtered. Then, quickly: "All right now, girls—nice to meet you, Amber—I'd kiss your hand and all that, but there's no time. What you need is my Sherman!"

He led them around the house to the back yard. There slept a dark, steel beast with a white star emblazoned on its side, waiting to be awakened.

"All gassed up," said Chopper, "armed and ready. See the fifty-cal up top? I've kept her that way since I got her. Sometimes I even take her out and rumble her around the fields and shoot off her guns, just so she doesn't get rusty. Cops haven't asked me about it yet," he chuckled. "I've always had a feeling it might be needed one day."

"Thank you sir!" Amber ran for the tank.

"Best of luck to you, Rocket. I'll be watching." Mr. Chopper touched the field glasses hanging around his neck. "Let those freaks of nature know it ain't Racquel they're dealing with!"

Rocket gave him a parting, playful punch on the shoulder and shot off after Amber. Her comrade was settling into the driver's compartment in front. The engine fired up with a roar like rattling chains. Rocket scrambled up on the turret as the heavy vehicle lurched forward, across the yard and swinging onto the dirt road. Easing herself down in the turret, the tank blowing by Chopper, she heard him shout: "Go get'em! Ha ha!" Like a boy of ten.

* * *

><p>The Fangs had been busy. Armor-Bearer Ted had posted sentries along the periphery of the woods, keeping watch as the others got the launchers ready for their deadly business.<p>

Now one of the sentries sang out. "Boss!" Fangs always used "boss" or some such term, but never "sir;" such allowances of respect were beneath these superior beings.

Ted, who'd been running from tripod to tripod and urging the crews to hurry up, turned his shaggy, pointed-eared head. "What?"

"Someone's coming." The sentry sat astride a low maple limb. "Whoever it is needs a muffler." And Ted, even without enhanced hearing, detected the rattling roar. He slunk to the edge of the woods and watched the road.

At first he saw only a dark hulk rolling in his direction, a cone of light piercing the darkness before it. A truck? Drunk driver?

Then, just as it moved into his full vision, he saw its white star. A tank. Whose Howitzer was swiveling directly toward him.

He cursed and dove for cover. The shell hit with a thunderclap that tore up earth, sending the armor-bearing flying. He somersaulted and alighted on his feet—all Fangs received increased agility. Some leaves had shaken loose from the trees and fluttered down around him. He directed his eyes to the nearest launcher and saw a twisted, smoking wreck, its crew reduced to splatters of crimson.

"Hell's bells," he snarled, and leaped off to take charge of what remained of his howling, snapping underlings.

Two launchers remained, the ones aimed at the back and the other side of the house. He reached the former one first. "Don't just stand there gaping, idiots! Is that thing ready? Hurry up! Move, move!" he barked, recalling how his Uncle often spoke to his men both at work and on Fang play-nights, and struggling with all his might to emulate it.

The Sherman roared up. Up in its turret, an Amazon in a nurse cap hammered away with its fifty-cal, cutting down a Fang, then another, then another before anyone could react. The tank braked, plowing up earth, turned toward the second launcher behind the house—where Ted stood staring—and charged across the backyard.

Ted, shouting another curse, leaped clear of its path. The newer, greener Fangs weren't so lucky, ground beneath its treads, along with the launcher. Useless now.

Puffing for breath, cussing a blue streak, Ted dashed for the last remaining launcher on the other side of the house. The Amazon saw him and loosed another din of fifty-cal shots. He threw himself to the grass and crawled, encountering some of his men as he went. They all had their Glocks out, shooting like it was the OK Corral. One screamed "Die, die!" laughing like a nut.

Ted sprang up to face them. "What are you doing, you idiots?" ("Idiots" was a favorite word of his Uncle's.) "It's a _tank!_ Do you think your handguns are gonna do more than scratch it? You're wasting your ammo! Here." He stabbed his finger at one, two, three werewolves. "You, you and you, get word over to Launcher Crew Three. They'd better be ready to fire. Tell'em shoot, _shoot,_ they shouldn't need me to tell them—oh, crap—"

Another deafening clatter of fifty-caliber rounds. Ted dove to the grass again, trees shuddering around him. Bullets thudded into trees, tore leaves loose that flurried down again around him. The Fangs he'd been shouting at flailed, collapsed and lay still. One fell on top of him; he grunted and thrust the bloodied man off.

Ted, bathed in sweat and streaked with his comrades' blood, tried to keep his breathing even. He squinted and tried to see across to the third launcher. Why hadn't they fired? He would have to get over there and do the job himself if he had to. Yes. For Uncle. For _all_ the Fangs!

The fifty-cal had stopped. He got up and ran through the trees, crashing through foilage. The launcher came into view. A silhouetted figure bent behind it, doing nothing at all.

"DAMN you!" Ted screamed, waving like a drowning man. "What are you waiting for? ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS PULL THE—"

His throat caught. The figure came into view. Not a Fang. The Fangs, he now saw, lay strewn slashed, bloody and lifeless around her.

Like Babydoll, he'd been fond of stories, _The Lord Of The Rings_ and others, in his boyhood. What he never told anyone was that secretly he always rooted for the bad guys, the ogres and evil wizards, and in particular the Nazgul on their flying reptiles, who struck terror into all. Joining the Fangs was like a realization of that dream. Like the king of the Nazgul!

But what came to mind, only now, was that the wicked king met his end at the hands of...a maiden.

She swung the launcher in his direction. Fire erupted from its muzzle.

And it was all over for Ted.

* * *

><p>Sweet Pea straightened up, peering through the haze of smoke from the launcher. Red bits and pieces of that wannabe-werewolf were splattered all over trees. The torn remains of surgically-engineered beasts littered the area, for she had been busy with her broadsword. It was like the aftermath of Gettysburg.<p>

Rocket climbed out of the Sherman. Sister met sister's eyes.

Sweet Pea gasped. Her hands went to her mouth.

Rocket ran up and threw her arms around her sister. Amber hung back, looking a little self-conscious.

"Rocket?" Sweet Pea choked out a sob. "I thought you were...how did..."

"Don't worry about it, don't think about it, just be glad!" They wept, laughed.

Amber stepped back—best give them some space. She heard a rustle and turned to look. Babydoll and Blondie walked out of the night, smiling.

Sweet Pea disengaged herself and walked up to Babydoll. "Baby. What ever happened?"

The blond girl shook her head. "Do yourself a favor. Don't ask."

"When I heard that ungodly boom, I knew something was up, to say the least. Sure enough...what was that, anyway?"

"A Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile," Amber rattled off.

"A what?"

"The kind we'll deliver to Russia if World War Three ever happens," Rocket said. "Amber flew it here."

"What?—Never mind! Why don't you all come in, meet the folks. You woke them up, too, along with probably the whole state."

A new voice spoke up. "I'm afraid that will have to wait."

Babydoll recognized the voice. The Wise Man walked up to them, still wearing his green General's uniform. "By the way, ladies—well done."

The girls—Babydoll, Rocket, Blondie, Amber and now Sweet Pea—stood together, waiting for their commander to speak.

He smiled at the newest arrival. "Mickey Mouse pajamas look good on you, Sweet Pea."

For just a moment she flushed pink. "Thank you. I—ah—didn't have time to change." The other girls giggled.

"Now." The Wise Man's face, and voice, turned grave. "No time to lose. We have to depart now."

"Now?" Sweet Pea's brow wrinkled. "What's going on?"

"I'll brief you on the way. Let's go."

He turned and walked into the night. The girls followed. Rocket and Sweet Pea brought up the rear, arm in arm, Rocket filling in her sister in quick whispers.


	10. Mission Europe

"—and that," Rocket finished for Sweet Pea, "is what we're up against."

The older sister listened in silence. Like the others, she now wore her mission clothes and all her weapons.

"Rocket," she said. "I leave you alone for five minutes, and look what happens—"

"Hey! Good to see you too!" Rocket could not help but giggle; in fact almost every minute since their reunion she had giggled and laughed and hugged her sister, and Sweet Pea did the same, but this time snatching off Rocket's cap and giving her a Dutch rub.

The girls stood in the vast cargo space of a Hughes Hercules Transport (better known as the Spruce Goose), but modified, its six jet engines blasting it to nearly Mach One, the whole plane vibrating until one had to wonder if it would all shake apart. On its nose was painted a girl crouching low, brandishing a sword with one hand and firing a pistol with the other, and the name BABYDOLL II. Amber stood with the other girls, the plane flying on auto-pilot.

The General joined them, combination cap tucked under his arm.

"Ladies," he said. He had to raise his voice a little to be heard above the engines. "Here's the plan for today's little romp. The Ruler is, at this moment, carrying his thirteen new purchases home in his own flagship."

"A ship?" Rocket. "Can't we just sink it?"

"Hold your horses, Rocket. It's a bit more complicated than that. if you got a look at that vessel, you'd see what I mean. The good news is that it at least doesn't have the capability to fire ICBM's—the Ruler has to bring them home and offload them. That's when they'll be out in the open and exposed.

"What you're going to do is sneak up onto a bluff that overlooks the naval base, and take up positions there. When the ship arrives and begins the offload—that's estimated to be fifty minutes from now—you'll intervene, eliminate all security personnel standing in your way, and destroy the cargo before it's ready to launch."

Amber spoke up. "How will we get out of there when we're done?"

The General smiled; doubtless he'd anticipated this question. "There's room on this bucket for anything, Amber. Including your favorite toy."

"Yes!"

Amber was so excited, she crunched her lollipop.


	11. In The Crystal Chamber

The Ruler sat straight and rigid. The throne in his quarters was built for relaxation, plush and padded, but he always sat poised on its edge, as if ready to jump to his feet.

The throne crowned a stark white dais tall as an office building, and occupied an audience chamber amphitheater cut from ice, vast enough to stage a music festival if anyone cared to do so in a place buried in eternal winter. And yet this was only his oceangoing throne room on the vessel now crashing through the Atlantic waves, bound for his home country where his personal grounds—the hunting grounds, three fishing lakes, and the palace on its cliff by the sea-occupied a fourth of the nation's square mileage.

All around the chamber's circular wall, walled up in the crystal ice, stood his new purchases: missiles like the Apollo boosters, awaiting their debut from his home launchers to surprise and shock all of Europe. He liked seeing them, having them around him, as one Vlad the Impaler liked to dine among his skewered victims.

Above the Ruler's head hung a chandelier, an intricate thing formed of ice crystals, that fanned out into fluted designs like a snowflake. Where it joined the ceiling, branches crawled down the bulkheads like crystal ivy, shining lights within, and it was these that provided the dim chamber's modest lighting—the Ruler did not like things too bright. But the chandelier served another purpose as well. As the Ruler watched, it came alive with lights, twinkling and flashing out a pattern that only the Ruler could understand.

A shadow crossed his face. After fuming and spitting curses, he sent for the Investor.

* * *

><p>The Investor shuffled into the chamber, puffing frosty breath. A big man, the Investor was, but bigger was the collection of diamonds and gems that he kept not in a safe, nor a safe deposit box, but displayed all over his person, on necklaces and pins and rings crowding every finger, and fairly encrusting the obscenely-priced black suit he wore—black, the better to highlight the sparkle of his new wealth.<p>

"You called for me?" His voice echoed in the ice-cut cathedral. It also shook slightly; he always faced the Ruler with the look of a man staring down a shotgun. "Sorry I couldn't get here quicker...you know, is there a faster way? It always takes me a half hour to get through all those twists and turns, and sometimes I run into dead ends and have to backtrack...do you think I could at least have a map?"

"You should consider yourself privileged that you can reach my sanctum at all." The chamber echoed the Ruler's voice into a dozen resounding rebukes. "Those who aren't invited get lost in the tunnels, and are never seen again."

"Oh. Ah—thank you, Excellency."

"Don't thank me until you've heard what I have to tell you."

"Yes?"

"It's the Fangs. I just heard back." The Ruler drummed his fingers on the throne's armrest. "How many of them did I send? At your urging, I might add?"

He waited. The Investor swallowed. "Five thousand."

The Ruler nodded. "The entire corps. Every last one." He leaned forward, glaring down at his partner. "And do you know how many returned?"

The Investor tugged at his collar. "How many, sir?" He asked in a small voice.

"One."

Silence.

"You mean one thousand?" No answer. "One hundred?"

"One. Single. Man." The voice was icier than the cathedral.

"What happened?" the Investor cried. It had to be some kind of natural disaster, a tornado, something like that! "What did that man say?"

"A missile happened, for starters. Your darling stepdaughter rode it, if you can believe that, along with the other members of her little high school clique."

This simply couldn't be happening. "They...rode...?"

"And jumped out, before it exploded and wiped out all but a few of my brave, valiant warriors. The rest were so much 'mincemeat' for the girls, in the words of the survivor, who was practically in hysterics by the time he reached me. The last few were murdered by none other than the target herself, with _one __of __their __own __rocket __launchers!"_ The Ruler was on his feet now, shouting down at the cowering Investor. "So much for guaranteeing the outcome!"

"Yes, yes your Excellency—"

"Yes your Excellency, what? So tell me, my slob of a friend..." The Ruler resumed his throne. "Any more bright ideas?"

"No, sir, no! But maybe...well..." Sweat trickled down the side of his head. "She has all her friends back now, you know...so, um...maybe she'll just get on with her life and forget—"

"She rounded them up to come after us, idiot!"

The Investor hung his head, and dared say no more.

"Get yourself and your diamonds out of here. I need to think."

The glittering man bowed deeply, turned and fled.


	12. The Vesuvio and The Hellraiser

After a few sips of brandy, The Ruler could relax a bit. He could think, consider this "Babydoll" and the mysterious guru who guided her, and strategize his next move.

It all began with this great ship on which he rode. He had a Navy, yes, mostly submarines—but he'd always wanted a flagship, the ultimate ship, really more like a whole fleet of battlewagons combined into a single monster dreadnought. To that end, he taxed his people, and taxed them again, and again after that; This presented few problems, as his nation only allowed people with at least six-figure incomes to be its citizens.

His domain included several islands off the coast. One of them was an active volcano that from time to time spewed its red-hot magma into showers of fireworks lighting the night sky.

He claimed this island for his personal use. His engineers carefully extracted it from the ocean floor, and around it he built his dreadnought, a fantastic jumble of steel and brass, turrets and a castle hammered together in the rear; and in the center rose the great mount, serving as the ship's spark-throwing, smoke-belching stack, the volcano that gave it endless power. The Ruler loved his one-ship navy to end all navies, taking it around the world, the better to intimidate other nations, some of the smaller ones even paying tribute, if he would only take his floating monster out of their sight.

Yes, The Ruler's ship gave him a sense of ultimate power. At its christening, smashing a bottle of the world's oldest champagne against its rocky hull, he dubbed it the _Vesuvio_ after Mount Vesuvius. _Get __it, __everyone? __I __could __bury __you __like __Pompeii!_

Now he read the lights cascading down the crystal ivy. The patterns also told him of events out in the world, what weather he could expect, and the time—and right now it was eight o'clock A.M. back in his home nation.

He sat back and stroked his chin.

In fifty minutes, he would reach home. Even his great ship lacked the means to launch ICBM's; they would have to be offloaded and wired to Launch Control in his palace. That would take another hour. In two hours, then, all would be in readiness; he could sit up in his palace's penthouse suite, press one button, and watch the European skies light up.

His enemies surely knew this, and were planning for it. So he would throw them a curve.

Looking at the cascading lights, he turned his head just so. An array of white sparks detached themselves and drifted over to him, forming into a circular pattern like a map of the heavens. A blinking blip in the center represented the _Vesuvio._ Smaller, twinkling lights scattered around it represented other vessels, some belonging to other nations, some his own.

The Ruler studied this for a minute; then a grin spread across his face.

He held out his right hand, palm up. A ball of shimmering light appeared above it. "Submarine _Hellraiser,"_ he said. His voice, even when not shouting at idiot business partners, echoed around the cavern. "Rendezvous ASAP, and await further instructions."

He flicked his wrist, and the ball vanished in a silent burst.

In sixty seconds, the _Hellraiser's_ reply sparkled from the crystal ivy: message acknowledged, twenty-minute ETA. Also they had notified the palace and the rest of the navy.

The Ruler sat back and nodded, satisfied. Offloading to the sub would take no more than thirty minutes. He would launch his holocaust from right here at sea, from a ballistic-missile submarine that would live up to its name as never before. Twenty minutes till arrival, thirty minutes till launch equaled fifty minutes total. By the time the Amazon squad caught on, it would be too late.

He clapped his hands, laughed out loud, called for more brandy, and forgot all about the Fangs, the Amazons, and even the idiot.


	13. Decision

The _Babydoll II_ approached the coast of France, silent now, its mighty engines switched off, gliding low to avoid radar. Amber, at the General's diection, splashed the plane into an isolated cove, kicking up a white tidal wave that swamped the shoreline and scattered the water fowl. When the water subsided, the door in the plane's side popped open.

Blondie and Rocket pushed out an inflatable yellow raft, complete with paddles for each of them, as well as for Babydoll and Sweet Pea. Amber had her own ride.

"We'll keep the bunny mech in that cave," the General pointed, "in the base of that cliff." In fifteen minutes the mech was stowed.

In its right arm, tucked under the Gatling gun, was a missile that the General called a "weapon of last resort."

"If things get too intense," he had advised them, "call for Amber. It's all set. She'll get a lock on the general area where the missiles are located, say her prayers, and push the button."

The plane, too large to remain in the area, took off with the General at the controls. The girls paddled ashore, minus Amber; she remained in the cave where she had tucked the mech away.

Babydoll inspected her pistol and holstered it. "Let's go."

* * *

><p>The Ruler liked parties. Loved them, in fact. According to the General, he threw a bash whenever the slightest excuse presented itself; the launching of his volcano-dreadnought, when he smashed a champagne bottle against its rocky hull and drank another bottle dry; at the groundbreaking for the new palace wing; at the cornerstone-laying of said wing; and finally, the ribbon-cutting for the finished wing. The palace now had five wings and the ruler was planning a sixth, this one to store live radiation subjects he would collect from around Europe and sell for the experiments that were only possible under these unique circumstances.<p>

Parties each Friday because it was Friday, parties for each of his daughters' weddings, parties for his country's population reaching the one million mark, parties because he was in a good mood.

And now the bash to top them all was getting underway. The Ruler liked everything to get rolling early, so that he would find everything in high gear when he himself arrived.

The girls took up their positions on the bluff. From this area, wooded by maples, the girls could hide unseen with a panoramic view of the shipyard. Babydoll, lying on her stomach on the grass, studied the shipyard: littered by machinery, workers like insects scurrying about, submarines sleeping in their docks. Steam rose up in plumes around the yard.

She chewed her lower lip, considering what she saw. After a minute, she spoke. "Ladies?"

"Here." The voices came from all around her.

"Do you see what I see? Down in the yard?"

Sweet Pea responded first. "One ship's berth is empty."

Blondie: "And eleven submarines in the others."

Rocket: "They're all still tied up. Shouldn't they be out in the bay, arranging themselves into the color guard?"

The Ruler liked a proper greeting when he returned: two rows of banner-flying submarines, all of which would favor his volcano-powered flagship with cannon-salutes as it slid by.

_Something,_ thought Babydoll, _is not right._

Her eyes moved from the shipyard to the palace, where music drifted out to her ears. She made a decision.

But could she sell it to the others? Babydoll stood up, dusted herself off, and smiled sweetly.

"Ladies?"

* * *

><p>Thirty-foot walls and five layers of security surrounded the Ruler's mighty home. Only a sheer cliff, where one side of the palace faced the ocean, was unwalled and un-patrolled. Babydoll, studying it, detected two vertical crevices, in which someone who knew how to climb could do so without being sighted from the shipyard. Only visible from the white beach below, but presently that was deserted.<p>

Descending from the bluff and skirting the palace down to the sand took longer than Babydoll would have liked. But scaling the crevice proved easy, and in the a few minutes the girls wriggled through a crack between the palace and its foundation.

The music trilled from up in the Grand Ballroom. Finding their way up through the steamy boiler rooms took a few more minutes; locating the place they needed, undetected, took a little while more.

Sweet Pea took one look at it and shook her head. "No. Way."


	14. Party Girls

_Music for this chapter: "Purcell Snatcher" John Debney (link on my profile page) Thanks for reading!_

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><p>Four new guests sauntered out into the Grand Ballroom. They were resplendent in sequined gowns of purple and violet, glittering under the crystal chandeliers, flower-adorned hair flowing over their shoulders, save the strawberry-blond guest who kept hers short. The auburned-haired one, for some reason, looked green in the face as if fighting back nausea. The blonde in front held a purple domino mask in front of her eyes; the mask was festooned with an ostrich feather.<p>

The four moved into the crowd, which was swaying to chamber music. Babydoll had heard somewhere, probably from the Wise Man, that the Ruler like to compose music and kept a grand piano in his private quarters.

A man in a tuxedo appeared beside Babydoll. "Pardon me, miss. Your friend here—is she sick?"

Sweet Pea glared at him. "Step a little closer and ask that."

"She's fine." Babydoll pushed past him.

"Honestly, Sweet Pea!" Rocket hissed. "I know you don't like to wear these, but still—"

"Girls, quiet!" Blondie herself wore a pink purple-trimmed strapless dress. Babydoll almost didn't recognize her without her goggles or leather tassels. Rocket appeared normal, more or less, from the neck up; from the neck down she was the Princess of France at Louis XVI's coronation, her own dress green and red with a satin gold sash draped shoulder to waist.

Another man, a young guy with slicked-back black hair, bowed to Babydoll. "May I have this dance?"

"Oh." She stopped and looked him over. "I guess so...but I'm just so scared about what's going to happen. So's my friend—see how green she is?"

"Baby!" Sweet Pea clenched her teeth.

The young man screwed up his face. "Why did she call you 'Baby?'"

"Nickname."

"Of course." He offered his arm. "May I?"

Babydoll smiled sweetly, handed her domino to Sweet Pea, and let the young man lead her by the hand onto the dance floor. She glanced back at Sweet Pea; her comrade was holding the mask between thumb and forefinger, grimacing at it, as it was something just dredged out of the sewer.

Blondie leaned close. "Sweet Pea, this is the only way we can find out." Rocket gingerly plucked the mask from between her sister's fingers.

"So." The young man took Babydoll by the hand and placed his other hand around her waist and the two danced. "Scared, you say?"

"Oh, yes!"

"Don't be. You're not alone, you know. Lots of citizens are shivering in their boots at what's about to happen. No need. They'll see," they swung around, and he swept her back—"that there's nothing at all for us to fear. The rest of Europe, of course, well—" he chuckled—"that's another story. And—" they swung around again—"would you like to know a secret?" He wore the mischievous grin of a schoolboy.

"If it'll help, yes."

Her suitor's face darkened. "No—my apologies—poor judgment on my part. I musn't tell anyone."

"It might make me feel better."

"I musn't. Please forget I said anything."

_Damn_ it! Babydoll stuffed down her frustration. She stopped moving and took him by the shoulders. The other couples swayed and swung around them.

"I have other outfits," said Babydoll, "besides stiff formal gowns."

"Really." He studied his shoes.

She tipped up his chin. "Would you like to hear about my favorite? It's kind of like a sailor suit." Her voice dropped to a soft, sultry cant. "It's Navy blue, miniskirt, bare midriff and stockings...high heels..."

"Um." Sweat beaded on his brow, though it might have been all the combined body heat in the ballroom.

"I was just thinking," she purred, "maybe you'd like to see me in it."

"Miss!" He appeared horrified now. "Whatever are you...eh...you're really serious?"

"As serious as the end of the world."

He burst out laughing. "Oh, what the hell! Ha ha! All right, come closer. It's this. Only a few of us know it. The time," he whispered, "has been moved up."

"Really." Babydoll kept her face even.

"Yes!" He nodded. "He's launching them at sea! They're loading the missiles onto a submarine as we speak. Once that's done..."

"When?"

"Oh—" he turned and perused the giant Big Ben clock face at the head of the room. "Twenty minutes or so, if they're on schedule. And the Ruler always sees to it that everything runs on schedule—the trains, the streetlights at night—say? Miss?" For she was trying to squirm out of his embrace. "Miss!"

She head-butted him. He let go and staggered back. Babydoll marched away, the crowd parting and gazing curiously at her. She paid them no attention, retrieving her headset from the depths of her dress and held its mouthpiece to her rouged lips. "Amber! We've found out what's going on. He's launching them at sea. We have twenty minutes."

"On my way," Amber's tinny voice responded.

"Hey!" The young man caught up with Babydoll, grabbed for her arm. "Who are you? Guards!"

By now Babydoll had reached the others. She reached over her shoulder, down the back of her dress, and slashed out her katana.

"Wha—?" The man shrank back, blanching.

Babydoll turned back to her comrades. "Did you hear that?"

"Loud and clear." Rocket held her antique pistol at high ready.

"And I can finally take this thing off!" A ripping, a tearing, and Sweet Pea's dress lay in tatters around her. She stood in her leather corset and armor.

Running footsteps. Uniformed men in black riot gear, helmets and visors, scrambled into the ballroom. The guests all dropped on their stomachs, leaving the intruders exposed to an arsenal of aimed AK-47's.

Blondie put on her goggles, pulled them down over her eyes. "Five...four...three...two...one."

**_! CRASH !_**

A scream rose up from the guests. Plaster and dust rained down, like Samson caving in the roof on the Philistines, except that this Samson stood twenty feet tall, clad in armor and with titanic guns bolted to its forearms. And it wore the pink merry face of a bunny, smiling through the shower of white dust.

The riot squad guards staggered about, or fell and still.

Amber's voice sounded over Babydoll's headset. "All aboard, ladies!"

Rocket, Blondie and Sweet Pea were already running for the mech, jumping over prone guests and stunned guards. Babydoll brought up the rear. Each girl positioned herself on one of the mech's feet. All held on tight.

Shouts from outside—reinforcements.

Rocket had donned her headset. "We're all ready, Amber!"

The boosters blasted to life. The mech shot through the ragged hole it had made in the ceiling and headed for the skies, leaving a trail of thick gray smoke.

"I've got his estimated course on my computer," Amber said over Babydoll's headset. "We'll follow it all the way out to his ship. Hold on..."

The afterburners kicked in with a blast. The mech arced out over the ocean. In seconds the coast fell out of sight behind them. Only the vast ocean to the horizon, in every direction.

Babydoll clung tight, hair streaming behind her. _Will we have time?_


	15. Here We Go Ladies

Thanks again to everyone who's following the story! Hope you enjoy this chapter. Let me know you read it, and I'll add more soon...

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><p>The Ruler squirmed on his throne and willed himself not to have another drink. He'd downed three brandies already, and he could only gulp so much before dissolving into a complete drunk—and today, that would not do. He needed to stay clearheaded for this occasion, The Moment, the whole dream and ambition and realization of his lifelong goals.<p>

The _Hellraiser_ had surfaced right into his cavernous quarters, melting up through the center of the floor, splashing water on the surrounding deck. Then the _Vesuvio's_ waiting crewmen began their task of dislodging the missiles, chipping away the ice that covered the Ruler's thirteen gifts to Europe. Cranes then swung in to lift them up and over and into the submarine's fourteen tubes. One tube would remain empty, but the Ruler was too excited at all the promise of the future to worry about that. And then the grin slipped off his face as he thought of his new friend the Investor.

Where in the devil _was_ that man? The fat guy always seemed to be drunk, more than once belching in the Ruler's face.

After selecting his special guest's quarters, the Ruler directed the maintenance crew to take extra special care cleaning that room, polishing its bathroom fixtures, vacuuming its plush white carpet. They had repainted it, moved in a new queensize bed never slept in, expertly making it up with new sheets and a soft thick comforter spun from the finest of wools. Then they stocked the refrigerator with all manner of meats, hams, cheeses, and candies in the cupboard, as well as packing the bar with specimens from the Ruler's own wine cellar that went back to the days of Louis XVI.

When the Investor saw his new room, he bubbled over with all the joy of a six-year-old on Christmas morning. His benefactor patted him on the back and returned to business.

One hour later, said Benefactor thought he would knock on the door and ask how everything was getting on. He tapped once. No answer. Twice. The Ruler was debating whether to have security come and check, or just check himself, when the door banged open and there stood his friend.

"Hey! Wassup!" The Investor slouched in his bathrobe soiled with food stains, chomping on a turkey drumstick and holding in his other hand a half-emptied bottle, the dark liquid sloshing about inside. Some slopped out and splattered on the carpet, and would have splattered the Ruler as well if he didn't jump back. "How ya doin'!" Every slurred statement was an exclamation, a mighty blow struck with words, as if the Investor imagined himself to be Superman.

The Ruler looked over the man's shoulder. The room looked as if a typhoon had hit it.

"Well watcha standin' there for! C'mon in!" The Investor stood aside, baring his teeth and showing at least three bits of turkey lodged in them.

The Ruler slammed the door shut instead.

Now, snug on his throne with the _Hellraiser_ floating in its berth far beneath him, he raised a hand palm-up before his mouth. The shimmering holographic ball appeared above it.

"Bridge. Find that...that _oaf_ and send him right here!" He tossed it upward, and it vanished.

The Commanding Officer up on the bridge soon sent back a reply: the oaf was on his way. Also that an unidentified flying object had been sighted streaking toward them.

The Ruler, who'd been thinking again another drink, sat upright.

"An unidentified object?"

* * *

><p>The Bunny Mech rocketed low, skimming the waves—the dreadnought's radar would be sweeping in all directions, and they wanted to avoid it if they could. The force of the mech's motion kicked up a wake of white spray, leaving a long, frothy trail on the ocean.<p>

"See it yet?" Amber asked, her voice tinny over Babydoll's headset.

"I see it." Babydoll held onto her headset with one hand. The wind whipped through her hair. The volcano ship, smoke curling out its jagged black summit, rested on the surface like an island with a city of steel and brass built around its edges, and a forecastle in the front slicing through the waves.

So what was the plan? By now the lookouts would have spotted them and raised the alarm. Babydoll weighed options in light of the scant intelligence given up by the young man at the ball. In the end, there was really just one course of action.

Rocket, as if reading her mind, called out over the wind: "We just charge in—"

Blondie added, "With all guns firing—"

Sweet Pea finished. "And hope for the best."

"Heads up, everyone," came Amber's voice over every headset.

Babydoll saw it: two missiles rising in a wash of white smoke from the fore and amidship areas of the floating fortress. A third missile soon joined them. _Three?_ The Ruler was taking no chances.

"Amber?" Babydoll watched the incoming missiles. They weren't the surface to air kind, but Harpoons, designed to blast entire warships. She willed herself to remain calm. No different from that fire-belching dragon.

"I see them." Amber's voice in her ear. "Watch and learn."

The mech's starboard arm whirred into line with the missiles. Then its Gatling gun ripped to life. The closest missile exploded, scattering shrapnel, some of which peltered the mech like metal raindrops. Babydoll huddled against the mech's leg, as did the others.

The arm swung to line up the second missile. Babydoll braced herself—that gun was so damned _loud._ The gun ignited again, seventy-five explosions from its spinning barrels per second. Another missile erupted into a fireworks display. The mech, still racing full-bore, flew through its smoke and another pattering of shrapnel.

"Hold on," Amber said.

Mech and missile raced closer to each other, like a game of chicken. Except, Babydoll thought, holding tight, that there was no pilot in the missile to play chicken with, only a warhead packed with high explosive whose very purpose was to explode mech and girls all over the sky...

The mech braked, mashing its passengers against its legs. Babydoll caught a glance of Rocket on the other leg; her face was pressed against the metal, and it looked like it had on the train when one of the robots gave her a haymaker to the cheek.

The mech shifted to the right. No time for the missile's guidance system to correct; it screamed by. Babydoll glanced back and saw it swinging around in a wide arc as the Mech's boosters kicked in again. But now it lacked the fuel; the smoke ceased, the projectile gliding down to the ocean and splashing in a tall, white geyser.

"You go girl!" Blondie cheered into her headset.

The volcano-ship loomed close. Three rows of windows on one side marked its bridge. Babydoll scanned it for anything like anti-aircraft guns.

"Don't see any from here," said Amber, as if reading her mind. "That ship was built with the missile age in mind, I think."

"Girls." Babydoll eyed the summit, the great smoking crater.

"Babydoll?" Sweet Pea looked where she was looking, then at her face. "Are you sure?"

Amber's voice broke in. "Here we go, ladies!"

Small arms fire peppered from below, but it made no difference. The mech swung high, rested for a moment above the crater...and plunged feet-first.

Babydoll held on tight, watching the smoking darkness rush up at her, and covered her nose and mouth with her sleeve. _I hope this works out!_

The darkness swallowed them. The temperature rose to jungle-heat, along with the stench of sulfur.


	16. Listen To What I'm Telling You

_Author note_

_Thank you, Guest, for your kind review. Sorry I've been away for so long, but we're going to see this through to the end. Hope all you good folks can make the trip with me, and that it's an enjoyable one! :)_

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><p>"The twelfth missile is in place, Excellency!"<p>

The Ruler twirled a newly-emptied goblet in his fingers and basked in this thought; and then the alarm sounded.

BONG-BONG-BONG-BONG

The Investor, standing beside him, jumped. The Ruler had made it clear, he would allow his friend to be _nowhere_ right now but _right beside him_ until this was over.

"W-what's that, Excellency?"

The crew that had been crawling around the _Hellraiser,_ fussing over the new cargo, looked up and around for a only moment before resuming their work—their leader was watching them.

The leader strode to the brass speaking tube. His fat friend waddled along behind, puffing and wringing his hands. "Excellency? Is it a fire?"

"No. This isn't the alarm for that."

"It isn't?"

"It's General Quarters. 'All hands, man your battle stations.'" He turned to face his sweating business partner. Even now the Investor insisted on wearing all his gems and diamonds. "Why don't you tell me what you think?"

The man shook and sweated and said nothing. A voice spoke from the tube: "Excellency? An aircraft is approaching."

"You don't say." He kept his eyes on his friend.

"No, no!" The Investor shook his head. "She couldn't possibly—"

"Quiet," the Ruler snapped. The voice from the tube hadn't finished yet. "Say again, Bridge?"

"It's some kind of rocket-powered vehicle. We're launching three Harpoons now."

"Ah! Good!" Wild hopeful joy on the Investor's glistening face.

A minute went by.

The tinny voice sounded from the tube again. "Excellency?"

"Yes?"

"It evaded the missiles. It's a very small target. Now it's...ah..."

"What's it doing?"

"It just went down the stack, Excellency."

"It _what?"_ The Investor clung to his boss.

The Ruler shook him off. "The crater."

"Apparent kamikaze attack," the Bridge voice went on. "No sign of it now."

No, of course there wasn't, for there was no means of tracking anything inside that shaft. If any intruder went down far enough, of course, it would be the geological equivalent of going to hell; singed, seared and burned to ashes.

"Turn off the alarm," the Ruler said, "but maintain battle stations until further notice. Otherwise, we'll continue normal operations."

"Yes sir."

"Continue normal operations?" The Investor was aghast. "We're being invaded, man!"

"Now listen. They picked a poor way to do it. They know they can't breach the ship any other way. Their only hope is a fool's hope."

"How'd they know? How'd they find out?"

"Man, listen to what I'm telling you. They went _down,_ into the _crater._ You know what they'll find down there? Fire that would melt granite, and lots of it, believe me."

"But what if—"

"They stop first? That's their choice. If they fly back out, we'll have a hundred missiles ready to launch. If they try to break in from inside the shaft, they'll have a very hard time of that, and even if they succeed, do you have any idea of what they would encounter before they got down here? There's no chance, friend. None. Not in the time they have. It would have been better for them if the missiles had shot them down." He chuckled and patted his "friend" on the arm.

"You sure?"

"Do I look worried? Now..." He left the Investor's side and returned to the business at hand.

_Better this way,_ he thought. _Better that they meet their doom right here. Now I don't have to wonder where they are or what they're up to. We'll wrap this up here and now, and that'll be it!_

Yes, it was over. He had won.


	17. Do Not Scream

_Author's note: Thanks for the reviews! And Guest, I'm glad you returned. The Ruler corresponds to the real-life Businessman in Chapter 2. Stepdad is in the Babydoll's fantasy world as the gem-studded, blubbering Investor. Let me know if you have any additional questions. Best wishes!_

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><p>"Amber." Babydoll clung to the mech's steel leg. It grew rapidly hotter. The brothel, the Roman ruins—she seemed to keep running into hot places. "It's getting like a Turkish bath out here."<p>

The mech dropped slowly, thrusters growling, like a submarine cautiously trying deeper and deeper depths. Its smoke scratched Babydoll's throat; she kept her breathing shallow. Two spotlights shone from the palms of its steel hands, stabbing the darkness below with two cones of light.

The wide crater had quickly given way to a narrow shaft, rife with jutting formations of black, porous rock, ledges and shelves. In some places the mech barely squarely squeezed through, scraping the walls, dislodging showers of dust.

"I read you," came the tinny voice over Babydoll's earpiece. "Getting pretty stuffy in here, too—there's no air conditioning or anything."

Babydoll watched below, where the lights showed a vertical cave descending and descending still further, until she thought the ship couldn't _possibly_ go down this far.

_I wish the Wise Man was here_...

But they were on their own for this one. even their mentor had been fooled. And what lay waiting between them and their goal? There was no way to know.

The pilot's voice crackled again in Babydoll's ear. "The hell with this. Ladies? What say we just blast our way in?"

Rocket, clinging by Babydoll, spoke up. "It sure beats roasting in here forever."

Sweet Pea: "Whatever we find on the other side, we can handle it. I know it, Baby, and you know it."

Blondie: "We don't have forever."

Babydoll knew it. She touched her headset—even that almost burned her fingers. "I read you, Amber. Go for it."

"Copy that. Brace yourselves, everyone..."

The mech slowed to a stop. It hovered, with a low steady rumble, in the shaft. Its starboard arm whirred upward to about a 120-degree angle and locked there. This arm packed the mech's Gatling gun that had shredded fighter planes; but Babydoll knew it was not this that Amber was about to fire. Hidden inside that arm, carefully capped over, was a weapon never before fired or used, kept only for emergencies when time was short and information not available. Babydoll had seen its trigger during her time in the mech's cockpit: a single button of angry red, covered by a clear thick acrylic flap fastened with a latch.

Blondie covered her head. Rocket and Sweet Pea, on the mech's other leg, did the same. Babydoll hastened to follow suit.

"On three," Amber said. Babydoll envied her the safety of the enclosed, armored cockpit.

"One...two...three."

A _whoosh_ like a bazooka sounded. Not so bad. But an instant later came a blast like the last trump, the whole planet shaking loose and detonating. The heat stung Babydoll's skin. She shuddered, holding on for dear life, eyes squeezed shut, and willed herself not to scream.

* * *

><p>In a small space like a gear locker, two of the <em>Vesuvio's<em> crewmen sat on opposite sides of an overturned bucket with a checkerboard on top. The men sat cross-legged on the deck, moving pieces and swigging from a dark brown bottle they handed back and forth. Both wore uniforms with the shirttails hanging out, and both needed a shave.

"Heh-heh-heh, looks like that missile offload detail's not missing us. Or else can't find us." Swig, gulp.

"Yeah. They must be busting their chops, those poor devils!" Swig.

"How'd you score the booze?"

"The guys who work in the royal pantry. They'll sell you one if you pay them enough. His Excellency never misses them, he's got so many. Bet he'll never get around to drinking a third of them in his lifetime!" Laughter, and another long swig.

The other man wrinkled up his face, looked around. "You hear something?"

"Like what?" The man wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

His companion never got a chance to answer. The bulkhead, the gear locker, and the men vaporized in a blinding supernova.

* * *

><p>In another part of the ship, a sailor stood watch. Not a lookout or roving patrol; he had been assigned "fire watch," and his post consisted solely of a ladder leading up to a deck he never saw, and the steel door opening into the crowded crew compartment where he slept among a hundred snoring men.<p>

The sailor hadn't wished to sign on board the flagship. The Ruler's nation was probably the only one that still employed press-gangs. "You're needed!" "For essential work!" "It's your duty, your country calls!" And so they hustled him off to the Vesuvio and...assigned him the Fire Watch.

_Fire? What fire?_ He'd yet to see any sign of it, and if there was, there were trained crews for that. But here he stood, around the clock every day, thinking _Well, as long as I'm here and have a job to do, best do it well, and maybe one day I'll get a promotion._ So he paced his area and paced it again until his feet were sore and his eyes moved automatically, no longer registering what they were seeing.

But now he heard something. A muffled sound, like all the thunderstorms on earth crashing in one place, growing closer. He stiffened.

Is that finally—?

He thought no more. The supernova claimed him.

* * *

><p>In the wardroom, officers lounged and sipped fruit punch and enjoyed the panoramic view through the vast plate-glass window. Two of them, sitting at a table, discussed the upcoming event.<p>

"Things are going to be a lot different," the Commander said. "You should think about how you can benefit from it."

"How so?" The Lieutenant, new on board, had been assigned to the Commander's division.

"Well, word is there's going to be a lucrative market for test subjects."

"You mean radiation-poisoned people?"

"Whatever you want to call them. The poor wretches will have nothing left to live for anyway, so why not make good on it? Take my advice. I've already got ten clients lined up, and they'll pay cash money. Look," he leaned forward and lowered his voice, "Everybody knows the Ruler is doing it. But what the hell for? He's not rich enough already? And he hasn't handed down any rule against us getting in on the act. Strike while the iron's hot, man! Now me, I'm looking at early retirement." He sat back and smiled. "Got a cottage all picked out on Fiji, and—"

He said no more. The supernova overtook them, immolated them and scattered their ashes before they even heard it coming.

* * *

><p>The Ruler felt the rumble from the bottom of the <em>Vesuvio,<em> still several decks beneath the holocaust drilled by Amber's weapon. The ship shuddered. When the rumble subsided, seven kinds of alarms were wailing, beeping and shrieking.

And he had the unfortunate luck of having the Investor next to him. He braced himself—

"AAUGHHHH, I KNEW IT, WE'RE DONE FOR!" The man with the gem-encrusted clothes clawed at him, grabbed his silk shirt, wept.

"Get off me! Man, will you get a grip? Now—thank you," he puffed to two guards who had run up and dragged the blubbering Investor off him. He dusted himself off and went to the ornate silver rail overlooking the _Hellraiser_ and the offloading operation. "Is everyone on break now?" he shouted. "Everyone here gets a bonus, once the job is done. One hundred thousand, how does that sound? Let's go!"

Everyone scrambled back to work.

The Ruler directed his gaze back to the Big Ben clock fixed to the bulkhead opposite the balcony. Twenty more minutes, and it would be done; twenty minutes and he could launch his missiles.

The Investor appeared at his side again, calmer now, but still red in the face and still blubbering. The Ruler should have ordered those guards to lock him up. "Excellency! Aren't you worried? Aren't you going to find out—"

"What that was? Don't you know?"

"But—"

"Man, you had best calm yourself before I have you thrown to the sharks, you understand? Now listen. I thought I explained this. They'll never get down here. Not in the time they have left."

"But—!"

"And if you knew what they're up against, my friend, you wouldn't worry either. If they knew what they're about to face, they wouldn't have dynamited their way in. All right?"

The Investor sniffled. A few of his diamonds had somehow fallen off his suit, leaving patches like bald spots. "Are...you sure...?"

"For goodness sakes, man, if you could see yourself right now. She's a girl, not the bogeyman! Relax, my friend." He gripped his partner's shoulder. "Everything's going to be fine. Especially in—" another glance at the clock. "Eighteen minutes! How long is that?"

The Investor's wet face finally cracked a smile. "Not long at all."


	18. Ready To Rumble

_Author's note: Thanks again for coming along. Guest, for the girls' real names, I've just used the corresponding actress names to avoid confusion, Emily for Babydoll & so forth._

_What is happening in reality? I'm not sure myself; but just as Babydoll set a fire, stabbed a skuzz and helped Sweet Pea escape in real life, the girls are opposing the two villains. I'll have to show how in the end._

_A confrontation between Babydoll and Stepfather? Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. :)_

* * *

><p>Gradually the rumble faded, and the heat subsided enough to where Babydoll felt safe to look up.<p>

Before the humming mech now yawned an aperture that grew larger as the smoke cleared to reveal more of it. That ungodly missile of Amber's had blown a hole through six feet of solid rock, big enough to drive a Greyhound through. Beyond the steel of the bulkhead, the rock continued like a cave in which a nuke had been tested; rubble strewn over the tunnel floor, glowing red in some places, and hazy with smoke.

The opening exposed two levels. The floor nearest to the girls lay some twenty feet below, and Amber was already lowering the mech there.

Babydoll was certain her ears would ring for days. But as the echoes of the detonation faded, three female voices rose up, highest and loudest one Rocket's:

"Let's go! Let's go!"

Babydoll sprang off the mech's foot and across the gap into the smoking corridor, following Rocket and Amber and just barely beating out Blondie. To finally be mobile again was a relief; she felt as if she'd been clinging to the mech forever.

Babydoll carried her pistol; the two sisters, their M-16's; Blondie, her hatchet and submachine gun. The mech, touching down gingerly on the deck, tramped behind them with a whine of its servos, looking like a scratched-up robot troll.

"Baby?" Amber, crackling over her headset. "My radar's picking up heat signatures dead ahead."

"Personnel?"

"Ninety-eight point six, that's it. About a dozen of them."

Personnel. Babydoll nodded at Rocket and Sweet Pea, who ran up ahead and disappeared around the bend.

Rapid-fire shots stuttered ahead, shouts, and a number of thudding noises. Rocket came running back, hustling a bewildered crewman in riot gear before her.

"Well, well." Blondie grinned, pushed her goggles a little further up on her brow. The crewman was a little cute, black hair cut in perfect bangs, probably fresh from training in handling all things except warrior amazons with M-16's and bunny-mechs.

The crewman halted in front of Babydoll. He did not look at her, though; his eyes were riveted on the mechanical hulk behind her. "What's...?"

Babydoll jerked a thumb over her shoulder. "See how big that Gatling gun is?" A whirring noise; Amber was maneuvering the boy's head into the gun's crosshairs. "Now. What's the quickest way down to the bottom, where that offload's going on?"

"Offload?" A nervous grin. "What offload would that be, ma'am?"

Babydoll looked over her shoulder. "Amber?"

"All right, all right! It's simple, see—the info I mean—here. Look." He reached into a pocket on his right sleeve.

"Keep your hands where I can see them!"

"Sorry, sorry. It's in the pocket on my right sleeve. Like an electronic map."

"Oh?" Words from the recent past came back to her. _The Germans are preparing a report for the Kaiser...it's a map._ This kid had one, too, for this ship?

"Yeah, yeah! Shows you the whole vessel."

While Blondie, Rocket and Sweet Pea kept the crewman covered, Babydoll dug it out of his sleeve pocket. It was a compact unit the size of a notepad, operating by touch, that displayed on its screen a yellow diagram of the _Vesuvio's_ multi-decked interior.

Babydoll held it up and studied it. It was a map indeed, a damage assessment of the calling card that Amber had sent thundering through the vessel. It outlined the entire ship, including the control shaft where the explosive had begun—_I am not going to believe that's only two-thirds of the way down!_—and through several compartments and areas, traveling in a straight juggernaut of a line, before coming to rest only a compartment shy of the outer hull. It had done plenty of damage.

"Great!" Rocket took hold of the notepad's edge, studied it along with Babydoll. "This ought to help. Look, we're right about here." She pointed. "We can take this passageway down, then turn here, and then these stairs head right down..."

Babydoll had hoped to find the sub outside; it would have made things a bit easier. At least there was still time.

She turned her eyes back on the soldier, who kept stealing glances at the mech and its wicked Gatling gun. "Do your buddies over there carry these, too?"

"What? You mean the dead guys? Yeah, they do."

In a few seconds, the girls all had maps. Babydoll got another one for Amber, handing it up through the mech's doorway.

"Heads up, everyone," came Amber's voice over their headsets. "I'm picking up more heat signatures, too hot for people and a whole lot bigger."

Babydoll touched her headset. "How big?"

"Big enough to let me deal with. I recommend you all get out of sight till it's over."

"All right. Rocket, Sweet Pea, Blondie, scatter and make your way down to the bottom. That's where we'll meet."

Whatever it was, it was mechanical, running on droning engines that filled the air with whines, first one, then another, then another after that. A growing rumble vibrated the deck under Babydoll's feet.

"Go!"

There were a number of openings, random maws like caves, as well as tall rectangular doorways. Blondie darted into one, the two sisters into another one across the wrecked corridor.

Babydoll took just enough time to check her pistol. Beside her was an opening where deck met bulkhead, like a chute leading straight down; it may have been for ventilation, whose screen had been jarred off in the blast. She sat down on the deck and stuck her legs down it.

_Here goes nothing..._

She pushed herself in and plunged.


	19. Amber's Finest Hour

Amber sat upright in the cockpit, watching her sensor display. The sensors were picking up energy—lots of it. The band of light to her lower left glared warning-red. Whatever was approaching packed the power of a battleship.

_Why wait?_ Pulling back the control grips, she set the machine to marching.

Once around the bend, the smouldering corridor opened into a wide-open space like an amphitheater where the crew might have gathered in their off-hours for entertainment. The seats were all empty, but not the floor; this was an area was vast as the ballroom she'd spirited her comrades away from.

The outer reaches faded into shadows. According to her sensors, whatever had scattered her squad lurked in there.

Though Standard Operating Procedure warned against it (and it was a bad idea in any case), she opened the mech's doors. They parted with a whirring sound, leaving her exposed in the cockpit.

_Well._ She popped a lollipop in her mouth. _What do we have here?_

Sports must have been played in this place, for a trio of three stadium-sized jumbotrons hung overhead. She leaned out, sucking on her grape lollipop—another unwise thing, but she wanted to see this new enemy for herself.

The jumbotrons flickered and lit up, showing a pair of ice-blue eyes magnified to the size of limousines. And then a voice sounded out:

"Stay where you are, intruder."

It boomed to the point of distorting, and echoed around the amphitheater for several seconds before it faded. So the place included stadium-league speakers as well, though Amber couldn't see them.

She removed the lollipop. "I take it you're the 'Ruler?'"

"I had enough to deal with," the voice pounded on, "before you maniacs showed up. You're damaging my property and giving me a headache."

"Glad to hear it. Hope you've got lots of aspirin, because it's going to get worse."

The eyes caught fire. Enlarged as they were, they looked like two wildfires breaking out. "You'll lose that bravado in the next few minutes. Taking care of you should make for a nice, relaxing break."

"A break from that business partner of yours, you mean?" She sucked on her candy. "I've heard he's a real piece of work."

A sigh hissed all around her. "You have no idea. But! I'm short on time. Look around you."

Rumbles sounded, not from one or two places but from seemingly from everywhere. Amber recalled that massive energy reading, the gauge glaring crimson. And then, out of the shadows, they appeared.

As she'd suspected, they were mechs. What she hadn't expected was their sheer mass. These were too big and heavy even for _this_ ship, yet here they were. Three of them surrounded her. They were like five-story buildings plated over, fitted with four legs apiece, revolving guns like bazookas protruding from their chests, and fingers tipped with missile launchers.

Amber, still nursing her lollipop, studied these toys of the Ruler's. Each had a smooth iron head sloping down to the arsenal on its chest. On each was painted a design: a gray spiky-furred wolf, a green dragon, and a glaring, yellow-eyed hawk.

_Get it? All predators! As opposed to your cute pink bunny rabbit..._

"Why a rabbit, now?" Chuckles echoed down now. "Why in the hell would you pick _that?"_ The Ruler burst into guffaws. He must have been dying for laughs.

Amber took the lollipop from her mouth and threw it out on the floor.

"Rabbits," she said, "have powerful legs. The better to kick your butt with!"

She clapped the mech's doors shut.


	20. Duel of the Mechs

Amber hunkered down in her seat, gripped the controls. Her eyes flicked over the displays. All three of the enemy mechs were coming at her.

She grinned—_made him angry, did I?_—and kept one eye on the sensor down to her left. The mech in front of her was building up a little more energy. Getting ready to fire.

Sweat trickling down her right temple, she waited one more moment. Then she tripped the boosters.

The mech shot upward at the exact moment the wolf mech fired its chest cannons. Any error in her timing, and all that firepower would blow her bunny's legs clean off. But Amber was rewarded when the blitzkrieg of shells slammed not into her, but the hawk mech behind her. It shuddered, shells detonating against its chest, arms and head, and tottered backward. From the speakers outside, Amber thought she could hear the Ruler cursing.

The wolf mech ceased fire, its chest wreathed in smoke. By that time Amber had kicked the boosters into overdrive and angled toward the battered hawk mech. She zoomed over it, kicking it in the head as she went.

Its chest guns went off, as well as a missile spritzing out in white smoke from its right index finger, but the bunny mech was above the line of fire. It still hadn't recovered its balance from the Wolf's accidental barrage. And when Amber figured in the recoil from its own weapons, kicking it over on its back should be a cinch—and it was.

_Crash_ it went, loosing a storm of meaningless fire like a fourth of July display, blasting the overhead and bringing a rain of metal and dusty plaster. Two jets of steam hissed from the ruined ceiling as well—the mech must have ruptured power pipes.

"Nice." So far, so good.

The hawk mech struggled, wriggled and kicked its four legs, to no avail. As Amber had suspected, the stupid things couldn't right themselves.

She kicked the boosters again, holding fast to the control grips. Not an instant to waste. The wolf mech turned its chest guns on her, blazing away, and was bringing up its missile launcher arms. Not enough time; the bunny mech clunked into it with a massive head-butt. It tipped backward. Amber cut the boosters, sending the bunny falling to the deck with an earthshaking crash. Besides its own guns, it possessed mechanical hands. Manipulating them quickly, Amber grabbed a foreleg and lifted, the arms' motors groaning, but raising the foot and tipping the wolf mech over. Over it went with a crash.

Now she knew she heard the Ruler cussing, the voice thankfully muffled through the mech's chassis. Her heads-up display showed a glowing representation of the two eyes, glaring through the smoke; it was like catching a glimpse of Lucifer through the fires his infernal realm.

_Let's poke a finger in your eye, you son of a bitch!_ She aimed the right arm and fired the Gatling gun. The jumbotron made a satisfying shattering noise, bits of glass floating down. The fallen wolf mech still struggled to get up; the hawk mech, like a bug that had finally died, lay still.

"No—oh, _damn_ it—" The Ruler's voice still came through, sputtering. Was he really piloting all three at once? That might be fun...until you went up against an opponent who actually knew how to fight.

But the dragon mech still remained, and Amber had about one second to do what she had to do now.

The Bunny Mech's toolkit was strapped under her seat. She pulled it out and held it fast.

"So long, chum." She patted the instrument panel with her free left hand. "It's been nice."

The warning display flashed a staccato-red—the Dragon Mech was opening fire with its chest gun.

Amber tripped the ejection seat.

A fwoosh of white smoke, and she shot up out of the mech the instant the Dragon's cannonball-sized slugs thudded into it. The Bunny Mech staggered back, shredding and disintegrating as it went, until it finally boomed in a yellow flash and a popping of shells.

But the late Bunny Mech had the capability of aiming its ejection seat. Amber sailed across the amphitheater, holding fast to the toolkit, turning a slow somersault and alighting squarely on the Dragon Mech's left shoulder.

She scrambled behind its neck. The Dragon still fired its chest gun, hammering away at the bits and shards that were all that remained of the burning Bunny Mech.

_Dumb, dumb!_ Amber, opening the toolkit and setting to work, shook her head. _Even a mech only carries so much ordnance!_

The toolkit included a lollipop. She popped it in her mouth—root beer flavor. All right. Now, this panel—she jammed her power-screwdriver under it and popped it open. Underneath lay bundled red, green and white wires. With expert eyes, she read their pattern and the writing stamped on them, took a pair of wire cutters, reached in, snipped two green ones and one red one.

The voice she'd been dreading returned. "What the...?"

The Dragon Mech bucked. Amber, clenching the lollipop between her teeth, hung on. The toolkit went flying, its innards scattered.

"Get off, you—!"

The words that followed, Amber preferred to ignore. Another buck followed, jarring her loose. Falling, she caught hold of the Dragon's shoulder-arm joint, swung there holding the wire cutters, and managed to scramble back up to her perch.

_Just one more wire..._

She snipped it.

The mech sagged, its engines settling with a descending whine into neutral. The Ruler, unseen but heard every second now, cussed up a storm.

Amber grinned around her lollipop. _Bark all you want, bully, you got no more bite!_

Except...

Both the fallen mechs fired the missiles from their fingers. With no sight for aiming, they flew wide, crossing each other and exploded into the walls, leaving white trails of smoke hanging across the amphitheater.

One more cut wire completed her task. Twin doors on the mech's dragon-adorned face parted with a hiss, revealing an empty bucket seat and control grips. She scrambled inside.

"All right." She adjusted herself on the seat—it was a little bigger than the Bunny's, and the cockpit roomier—and felt over the grips. The display lit the compartment red and yellow.

_Thank God for overriding. Never know when you'll need it!_ A welcome rush of adrenalin; she'd just scored and hotwired the royal Ferrari. Boo-yah!

"Where are you?"

The Ruler, from the sound of it, coming completely unhinged. Jumbotron visual lost, he was no doubt scambling to determine why he'd also lost connection with the last of his toys. The fallen mechs that he still controlled squirmed in a fog of smoke, shooting off what had to be the last of their ammo.

Amber raised an arm, launched a missile from the Dragon Mech's right thumb.

The bulkhead before her blew and left a nice hole. She activated the four legs and, bending down low, skittered through the smoke and tracers shooting back and forth with whistles like falling bombs.

_Now..._

She punched up the mech's data banks. Sure enough, up came a data readout, colored green, of the entire ship. A white blinking blip showed her location.

"Let's go."

She routed the quickest way, and steered the Dragon Mech in that direction.


	21. Blondie In The Hole

_Author's note: Thanks once again for your kind reviews! They are very much appreciated. :)_

* * *

><p>Blondie found a vertical shaft with a ladder bolted to the bulkhead, leading down.<p>

_Fine—we'll try this._ She climbed quickly and catlike from rung to rung. The ladder led through a narrow shaft bored through the rock, as if she was heading down into a mine. She climbed...and climbed...and still she descended.

How deep does this go? But, no exits; nothing for it but to climb further.

Except for the distant rhythms of clanking machinery, and every so often a snatch of muffled voices as she passed, all was quiet. She could almost forget she was in the belly of the beast.

Finally, she reached the end.

She had thought she would step out onto solid deck. But the tunnel, after flaring out about as wide as a city block, instead terminated in open air, rippling and hot like a jungle in August. The ladder, too, ended, and Blondie was left with her boot on the final rung, surveying this new vista below her.

It was a lake of red-yellow, bubbling lava, molten rock filling a cavern whose size approached the Grand Canyon. Flames shot up in places like solar flares, scattering bright droplets.

"Woah." Her goggles were all askew; she straightened them, holding to the ladder with her other hand.

The walls of this cavern, whose air rippled with heat, glittered with pipes, gauges, chains and like instruments. In the center of the fiery lake, directly below her, lay an apparatus like an oil rig, dominated by the most gargantuan boiler Blondie had ever seen. It sat half-submerged in the magma—maybe most of it lay underneath for all she knew, like the tip like an iron iceberg. Arches in its side admitted lava that poured in endlessly. How did that boiler keep from melting down?

A nest of brass pipes crowded the top of the boiler. They led up and branched out into a metal-sculpture tree, splitting and multiplying into smaller pipes that finally joined the cavern walls, fastened with bolted plates. The whole thing resembled a mechanical Medusa with lava-sucking mouths all around its head; Gehenna meets Victorian engineering.

But strangest of all were the crewmen.

Five catwalks connected the outer cavern to the rig and its boiler. These catwalks crawled with crewmen. They had arms, and legs, but appeared plated all over with chrome, scurrying about on the catwalks and crawling all over the boiler, adjusting dials and tightening screws.

Blondie pulled her goggles down over her eyes, turned a tiny knob on the right side. Her view zoomed in closer; she saw the "crewmen" much closer now.

"I'll be..." She squinted. "Robots!"

Now this was something new. She'd battled steam-driven zombie soldiers, but they were at least _partly_ human. But these?

Never mind. That boiler _had_ to be important. Obviously it powered a great deal of the ship, maybe even the whole thing. Were there other boilers? She could not know; she could only do what she could. And right now, that was to fight through those crewmen-machines-whatever they were and put that thing out of commission.

Blondie's submachine gun was still slung securely over her back. And her hatchet was tucked securely in her belt.

Pushing her goggles back up, she took a deep breath and let go of the ladder.

* * *

><p>She aimed for, and landed on, the biggest pipe she could see, large enough to drive a car through. She hit the metal running, reaching behind her and pulling her machine gun and firing, all in one seamless movement.<p>

Most of her initial burst glanced off the chrome bodies with showers of sparks. She squeezed off another short burst. One hit tore off an arm with a blaze of loosed electricity; another connected with a face and shattered it like glass. From that time on, she aimed for faces.

_What kind of weird things are these? Something like this I might expect to find on some distant planet, maybe, but not here! _

When this was all over, she'd have to tell the others about them. They'd never believe her. "Robots?" they would say. "Come on now!"

The gleaming crewmen, however, proved not such mindless drones. They flashed out pipes, drills, and wrenches as long as Blondie's leather-clad arms. An instant later she found they could also throw them—the wrenches at least—with all the accuracy of herself slinging her hatchet. She spun as a wrench flew past and struck a pipe with a loud _clang,_ spinning off into the fiery lake.

_All right! Trade ya!_ She pulled out her hatchet, wound up, and let fly. It sheared the robot's head clean off, head and body falling in opposite directions, its electricity crackling and bursting from nests of severed wires.

Blondie raised her submachine gun, appraised the swarming army of chrome before her, and wondered how far she could make her ammunition go. They were everywhere.

A robot confronted her; she kicked it over. It hit the boiler surface and rolled. Something on the back of its neck caught the girl's attention. Her zoom-goggles informed her there was a tiny red LED button marked RESET. A naked eye would have missed it, unless it could get a close look and the robot would keep still long enough.

_Oh?_ She lunged forward. It took two or three tries, but she pressed it with her thumb.

The mechanized crewman went rigid. Then it swiveled its face toward her. Words lit up across its blank face: AWAITING INPUT.

She put her face up next to it. "I'm Blondie, and I'm your new best friend. Do as I say."

_Now what?_ She waited. Another robot charged her; she shattered its face with a machine-gun burst.

Slowly, the message on her machine's face dissolved. Then it snapped to attention. A good sign?

"Clear me a way out of here," she said. _"Us,_ I mean. You're coming with."

The crewman wasted no time. It spun around and, with a force that surprised its new master, whacked one of its clones on the chest and sent it splashing into the magma. Then another, and another after that.

"Hold on! Just knock them down. We need eight more. The rest of them, you can do whatever with," she said, blasting off a shot another for emphasis.

The machine complied. After a brief struggle, Blondie had them reset was well. Now she had three servants—four—five—finally, eight.

"You, and you," she pointed to two of them, "come with us. The rest of you...well, you must know something about this boiler. Dismantle it, break it, do whatever you need to do, but shut it down! Got it?"

The six robots scattered and took up positions around the boiler. Were they following her instructions?

No time to stay and find out. "Now!" she shouted to her three companions. "Lead me to the bottom. We've got business there!" _Especially if my mechanized friends at the boiler don't get it done in time._

She pushed, shoved them to get them started. The three formed a wedge, plowing through the gaggle of remaining robots, pushing many of them to fiery destruction, as Blondie followed across the catwalk. She stopped a moment to retrieve her hatchet.

* * *

><p><em>Next up: What do Rocket &amp; Sweet Pea encounter?<em>


	22. Thunder and Lightning

Rocket and Sweet Pea ducked into an alcove. At first it appeared to be just a crack, a place to hide for a moment, but it widened and continued into a rocky tunnel. The tunnel led down, so they followed it.

The younger sister ran ahead; Sweet Pea kept back a few steps. Any moment Rocket, M-16 at the ready, expected to run into more riot squads or ogres or whatever the Ruler might throw at them, despite the narrowness of the tunnel; barely two people at a time could fit side by side.

Rocket, grinning mightily, dashed along so that her sister had to revert to her old habit of reminding her to "Be _careful! Watch_ yourself!"

"What do you think it'll be?" Rocket kept her rifle aimed. "Ogres? Giants? Losers like the ones we just met?" She giggled like a little girl.

"You never giggled like that when we were little and played with dolls," the older sister muttered, studying her map. The very bottom, so it said, was still two more levels below. If they could find a ladder, a stairway or an air vent...

_"You_ played with dolls, Sweet Pea. I never did."

"You had that G.I. Joe."

"That's not like—hold on." Rocket's voice fell to a hush. She flattened herself against the wall. Sweet Pea followed suit, hugging the opposite side of the tunnel.

Up ahead the tunnel leveled off, widening into a space roomy enough for four or five people to charge in broadside. Presently, though, they saw no guards, and no humans, only a dark gray cloud gathering about fifty feet away.

"Smoke screen," Sweet Pea whispered. "Ten to one, troops are coming up behind it. Ready?" She aimed.

The two sisters fired a burst, Sweet Pea high, Rocket low, their rifles spitting yellow fire.

No return fire cracked back; no cries, or any other sound. Instead the cloud assumed a shape, rolling and spreading into a form roughly like a man with six arms of all different lengths; and at the end of two of them, the uppermost left arm and middle right one, sudden white crackles of electricity appeared.

Rocket held her rifle to her shoulder, staring down the muzzle. "What the..."

The thing flung lightning.

"Duck!" Sweet Pea hit the deck, pulling her sister with her.

A white-hot bolt flashed over them, close enough to singe some of the hair sticking out beneath Rocket's field nurse cap. A thunderclap slammed their ears, shook their bodies, and raised a stink of ozone.

Rocket, lying on her belly, fired another burst, to no visible effect.

"Rocket, save your ammo! It's all made out of cloud."

A cloud. Impervious to bullets. Slugs of lead just whizzed right through it. A _cloud!_

Another flash of white materialized at the end of its lowermost right hand. The gaseous beast flung it. Again it flashed over the girls, stinging them with its heat. SLAM!

"Well this is just great." Sweet Pea struggled to her feet.

"That's not the half of it. Look."

Rocket pointed behind them. Sweet Pea looked to see, through the smoke from the two lightning-strikes, another beast-shaped cloud rolling up behind, this one displaying eight arms, four of which sizzled and popped like welder's arcs, throwing off sparks.

Both clouds were building up more electricity; arcs darted to and fro and twisted all through them, like animated skeletons made of energy. Doubtless charging up for an electrical storm that could pulverize a city, and all directed at the two sisters.

Sweet Pea did not say it: _We're sitting ducks. We're dead._ She may or may not have actually been thinking this, as she scanned the map.

"No doors?" Rocket asked.

"There's something else—an armory. Just ahead."

"Can we get in?"

"We'll have to. Maybe it'll have a vent, some exit that's not on this map."

They reached it in seconds, really just a plain steel-plated door with the word ARMORY 12 stenciled on it in black. A padlock secured it, which Sweet Pea made quick work of with her M-16. She kicked open the door.

It was just a small armory, really a closet, probably more of an afterthought added after the bigger, main ones had been stocked to the rim. It did have an air vent, but so narrow that only a snake could have crawled into it. As to the weapons, every shelf stood empty, every kind of weapon gone save for a few grenades and a single yellow tank like a diver's lung, with a black hose and nozzle attached.

Sweet Pea recognized it. "Flame-thrower."

"I know that." Rocket took it down, strapped it on. "Grab the grenades! We might need them."

"Sis! What's any of this going to do against—"

"Let's just wait another second." Rocket put an arm out to her side, barring her sister. "The buzzing's getting louder out there...all right...ready?"

"For what?" Sweet Pea pocketed the grenades.

Rocket lunged into the corridor, found the nozzle's safety, thumbed it off. Turning it upward, she slammed the nozzle's lever forward. Red-yellow flame shot out and washed over the ceiling.

She may not have been in the Navy, but Mr. Chopper had told her a thing or two about warships. Shipboard fires were no joke, and damage control was given top priority. And she had not failed to notice the sprinklers installed in intervals along the ceiling.

A spray like a cloudburst gushed from the sprinkler. Rocket trained her fire on the next one, and it came to life as well. The rest followed, one white burst after another, soaking the sisters and the passageway in one second flat.

A thunderclap sounded, two or three angry white flashes, and the arcs fizzled and died, the beasts dissolving into harmless wisps.

Rocket shut off the nozzle, a triumphant grin on her face. "Admit it. _I_ thought of that. Me."

Sweet Pea punched her on the shoulder. "All right, sis, score one for you." She shook water from her hair. "Now—" She consulted the map, doing her best to shield it from the rain—"there should be a ladder up this tunnel, leading right down to our party."

"Think I'll keep this." Rocket ran ahead with the flame thrower in her arms. In a minute the girls found the ladder and dropped down it.


	23. The Ruler's Pet

Babydoll free-fell, spreading herself out like a skydiver.

After a few seconds she alighted feet-first onto a rough, uneven surface that slanted downward. She skidded down, arms out to either side for balance. The dark shaft gave way to another one leading down to her right, then another to her left, then forward, then back, so that her direction kept changing. Finally the ground leveled out and she stopped, the grinding of rock beneath her heels ceasing.

Crouching low, she appraised her surroundings.

She was definitely in caverns now, deep catacombs with a vaulted ceiling, a place cloaked in eternal night. Flickering torches fixed along the walls, some high, some low, provided token illumination.

To her left, a tunnel some twelve feet high and eight feet wide, led away and curved out of sight. Two figures in gray monk's habits clung to the wall, hoods up and hiding their faces, save for the barest hints of glinting eyes. When she looked at them, they retreated.

Time to consult her map. She took it out, punched buttons, sought her location. Better light was needed—she moved underneath one of the torches.

The figures reappeared, joined now by a third.

Still perusing her map, Babydoll asked: "Are you crew, or prisoners?"

On the map she had seen something labeled PRISONS. Someone like the Ruler was bound to have political prisoners. That seemed to be a given with any despot. If this was where she'd landed, it would help her pinpoint her location on the chart, as well as possibly gaining some allies.

The three figures jolted, but this time they stayed in place. One of them spoke in a male, not too old, voice. "We're the keepers of...this place."

"What is this place?" She turned her attention to him.

The three forms ventured out a few steps. "It's like a zoo," said another one, also male, "with one exhibit."

"Who are you?" the third one asked.

"A visitor."

"You look like a cross between a sailor and a guard," said the first one. They were hard to tell apart, they all looked so much alike, as if stamped out on an assembly line.

Babydoll stowed the map in her shirt. "I'm trying to get to the bottom of the ship."

The three men stiffened.

"Are you sure you want to to do that?" asked the one in the middle.

The one on Babydoll's left, the first who had spoken, nodded. "Ahhh...the missiles."

"She can't mean the missiles!" blurted the one to her right.

The first man—Babydoll decided to call him "Monk One"—said, "You're arriving late, and the Ruler tolerates no lateness. You'd be better off staying here."

"I'm here to stop it."

Monk Two, in the middle, snorted. "You and what army?"

She thought of her comrades. "You might be surprised."

"Seeing a girl in a sailor suit, and armed like you are—now _that's_ a surprise." Monk Three, on the right. "Where did you ever come from?"

"No time." She walked up to them. They retreated a few steps. "Can you tell me how to get there from here?"

A noise sounded from somewhere down the tunnel, like the echo of a low, long rumble.

Babydoll drew her katana. "The zoo exhibit?"

Monk One crept up to Babydoll, threw back his hood. He had an undernourished face, with thinning undernourished black hair and sunken, nervous eyes. "Is there really anything you can do?"

"Only if I can get there."

The rumble sounded again. The tunnel vibrated, as if a house had fallen and crashed.

"I can tell you where the submarine and the missiles are. They're one level beneath us. You're almost there now." His eyes darted left and right as he spoke.

"But...?" Babydoll watched his face.

"The only way to get down there is through..." He waved behind him, toward the unseen source of the noise. "That." He nearly choked on the last word. "The Ruler's favorite pet!" He clutched the girl's sleeve.

"You're its keepers?"

"Its food!" he cried. His breath smelled of onions and stale bread.

Babydoll winced. Holding her katana, she started up the tunnel toward the rumbles and the shakes, which came every few moments now.

Monk One followed her. "Miss, miss, please, I don't know who you are but it's crazy, you can't hope..."

Words came back to Babydoll: _You have all the weapons you need._

"Why don't you tell me who you are," she said as she rounded a bend. "Might help to focus your mind."

"Oh. Yes. Well, myself, the others, we work for the Ruler, or did at one time. If he decides you're of no more use, or that you're smart enough to be dangerous, or if he gets it into his head that you're plotting against him—with us it was probably all these—he doesn't just lock you in a cell where he has to feed you. He tosses you down here, and his pet does the rest."

The next rumble fluttered the torch flames along the tunnel walls, blowing two of them out.

"Around this last bend," he said, "is its lair. You may have guessed that already." Monk One held fast to the girl's sleeve. "Are you ready for this?"

"Only if you let go."

"Sorry." He released her.

Babydoll bent low, crept to the bend, and peered around it.

The tunnel ended in another vaulted cavern, this one big enough to hold a ballpark. In the middle of it lumbered a beast more hideous than the dragon, and smelling every bit as foul. Like an unspeakable hybrid of devil and bull, it rose three stories even with its hunched, spiny back, fire-engine red, shot through with steroids, its arms two redwoods, its chest a mountain, and its head bristling with more shark-teeth than Babydoll could count, eyes of burning phosphorus, and two oversized rams' horns curling from that obscenity of a head.

"He found it," Monk One shouted over its snorting breaths, "living down in the volcano."

Yes. She had read about this kind of beast.

_The balrog!_

Flames leaped and danced all around it. The thing saw her and reared up high as a building, blasting out a roar that would make a T-Rex quail. She stood firm in the gale, hair streaming like a banner, but fighting back an urge to gag; its breath reeked of all things rotten and long dead.

So this was the Ruler's personal guard, the ultimate security for his private sanctum at the bottom of the _Vesuvio._

"You," she muttered at it, "are standing in my way."

"What was that, Miss?" Monk One said behind her. "I didn't hear—"

She raised her sword, and charged.


	24. To The Gate

_Author's note: Thank you, Karrottop, for your review. :) I'm also glad the monks didn't betray Babydoll-I wasn't sure what would happen when writing this. Anyway..._

* * *

><p>Babydoll leaped, spun. The balrog challenged her expertise and agility like nothing ever had done before: not the demon-samurai, the steam-powered soldiers, the robots or anything else. The great devil-beast stomped, roared, swiped at her with taloned paws that made her feel no bigger than a bounding grasshopper. Its fire seemed to come from everywhere, wreathing its reptilian as if drawn to it. The thing attracted fire, as fire drew flying insects. The heat stifled her, heated the air so that each breath scorched her lungs, and stung her skin.<p>

_Just need a clear shot at its eye!_ She'd done it before.

The thing stumbled—maybe she was wearing it out. Probably wasn't used to its victims hanging on for so long! Encouraged, Babydoll leaped, timing her upward trajectory with the brute's lowering head. Reaching up, she flashed forth her katana, and with a single well-timed slash—

—cut off the monster's head.

_Yes!_

She alighted on her high heels as the beast wobbled, collapsed and thundered to the floor. She sheathed her sword and let out of thankful breath.

_Well! Not so tough, was it?_

But she heard no yells, not shouts of celebration from the monks. _Of course not, they're not here! They made themselves scarce, like any sensible person would._ But...

Now she realized what was bothering her. No blood. Why no blood?

The fallen balrog's neck and shoulder area twitched, shuddered, after the rest of the hulk had gone still.

The girl backed away. She watched, open-mouthed, as the stump of the thing's neck split into two stumps. Then the stumps grew and shaped as they grew, mushrooming into heads with toothy mouths, two slits for nostrils, horns curling forth, and four eyes igniting...

_Oh. No._

Movement returned to the legs, the swollen arms. The beast rose up again in triumph, leering out at her with its two heads with two sets of swooping horns, two dripping jaws, and four burning eyes!

Like the hydra. She tightened her lips, facing it. Did the beast have this talent already, or did the Ruler add it somehow? Did he have alchemists, sorcerers of genetics working for him, formulating such monstrous hybrids?

_Fine._ Back out rang the katana.

The two-headed balrog mumbled, snorted, started toward her. Flames leaped and wreathed it as before. Babydoll, sword in hand, stood her ground.

"Miss!" Voices behind her, barely heard.

The monks! Why in the blazes were they showing up now?

"Miss!" Monk One was tugging at her sleeve.

"What do you want?" She kept her eyes on the lumbering beast.

"Best duck."

"What?" She glanced around.

At that same moment, she became aware of another heavy creature's steps shaking the cavern, these behind her. Coming up the tunnel was...she caught a glimpse of it.

The bunny mech?

No—a different and bigger one, green dragon design flashing, baring guns from its chest and missiles in its fingertips. The two other monks were leading it.

"Friend of yours," Monk One said. "At least that's what she said."

"'She?'"

"Baby!"

She had forgotten that she was still wearing her headset. "Amber? Is that you?"

"Found a new toy. Stand clear and let me handle this bad boy!"

Babydoll joined the monks, running to a jagged alcove along the wall. "Amber, be careful. It didn't have two heads when I first met it."

"That Ruler's just full of surprises, isn't he? I'll distract it."

Distract it she did, with a volley of missiles. The blasts drove the beast back, and very nearly drowned out its screams.

Babydoll thanked the monks, and skirted the cavern wall to the other side. There a short tunnel led to a gate or riveted iron, but like everything else in this place, the gate was too damned _big._ How to get through?

She touched her headset. "Good luck, Amber."

"Thanks, Baby."

Babydoll ran through the tunnel to the gate.

Beyond this, she thought, lay everything. Everything that she needed to shut down, to put out of business, but only if she could open it; and she saw no keyhole or even hinges. She doubted her pistol would do much good against it.

Behind her, in the cavern, World War III raged between roaring and mechanical beasts.

She checked her watch. Two minutes remained.

_What now?_


	25. A Fiery Welcome

Rocket heard the sound while still descending the ladder: nothing less than Armageddon.

"Great." Sweet Pea climbed down above her. "Sounds like someone got there before us. Rocket! You've got that look on your face. Wait for me before you go charging in."

"I will, I—" Rocket reached the bottom, stepped away from the ladder. "Will."

Before her, a tunnel led off to the left, a dark area lit by torches mounted along the walls.

"For exactly one second," Rocket added. "Then you get another workout keeping up with me."

Her sister jumped off, landed beside her.

"Ready?"

"Ready."

The two knocked their fists together, and headed up the tunnel.

* * *

><p>They arrived in the cavern just in time to see a piece of torn blazing flesh flying at them. They dove to the floor. The shrapnel hit the wall behind them and incinerated into ash.<p>

"What was that?" Rocket, on her belly, wondered aloud.

"I think that was a monster hand." Sweet Pea squinted.

The brawl between machine and beast thundered in a storm of flames, screams of rage and the rapid-fire clattering of Gatling guns, drowned out occasionally by an exploding missile.

A voice sizzled and burst over the girls' headsets. "Rocket? Sweet Pea?"

"Babydoll?" Sweet Pea tried to glimpse her comrade through the doomsday scene. "Where are you?"

"I'm by the gate into the Ruler's quarters. Can you help Amber?"

"That's Amber in there?" Rocket tilted her head. "How'd she ever score that thing?"

"Ladies, this is important. That balrog's like a hydra. That's why it has six heads now." All roaring in a chorus like lost souls, teeth snapping at the nimble mech.

"Maybe," Babydoll went on, "if you could distract it long enough for Amber to position herself for a good shot, she can fire a couple of missiles at the door—"

"I hope you're under cover, Baby!" Sweet Pea shouted above the clamor. "We don't want to blow you up, too!"

Then she thought of something. "Rocket!"

"I got the idea first."

"Not this time, you didn't! Amber! Let me get that thing's attention..." Although, since she herself was but an insect compared to that armored behemoth, she wasn't sure if this was possible. But she ran out across the balrog's path, yelling and firing off her M-16, raking two of its faces. "Hey, hey, freak!"

Rocket, flame-thrower in hand, moved in.

"I see your toy, Rocket." Amber. "Ready?"

"Go!" Rocket had it aimed.

Amber fired one of her apparently inexhaustible finger missiles. It burst the top of the beast's outermost head, but it took a second missile to destroy the thing altogether.

Rocket ran up, hit the nozzle and fired a stream of flame at the stump. Her aim was true; when she finished (and dodged a swipe of its paw), a charred, cauterized stump remained. Five, ten seconds passed; no new head showed any sign of growing back.

"Nice." Amber withstood a blow from the thing's other hand, the mech shivering. "Let's do that again!"

It took painfully long it seemed, with the time the girls had left, and many more than five missiles. But in time Amber blew, exploded and detonated away the creature's remaining heads, and Rocket proved true with her jets of cauterizing flame.

At last the creature fell with one last earthshaking crash, twitched an arm, a leg, and lay still.

A hush, and a haze of gray smoke hung over the place. The quiet was almost eerie. To Babydoll it seemed like a year had passed since she'd been in a place that was actually quiet, where explosions and the thunder of battle weren't assaulting her ears.

Rocket and Sweet Pea ran to join Babydoll at the great gate.

"Amber!" Babydoll kept her voice even. "Hope you've got some missiles left."

"My readout tells me I have two. That should do it. Stand aside, ladies."

They scrambled for cover.

_Fwoosh. Fwoosh._ The weapons shot forth in clouds of white smoke. Two blasts sounded; but when the smoke cleared, the gate, though dented and scarred, stood firm.

Babydoll stood and watched, her mind a frustrating blank.

Just thirty seconds remained.

* * *

><p>"Woah." Rocket raised her M-16. "Heads up, ladies!"<p>

Babydoll saw it. Her training checked her jaw from dropping, or sputtering out anything like, "How did _they_ ever get here?"

"I got the one on the right." Rocket stared down her sight. "Sweet Pea?"

"The one on the left is mine." She charged, ready to deal out another swift kick.

That left the one in the middle. Babydoll's pistol flashed out.

"Guys, _guys!"_ Running up behind those infernal walking machines, jumping between them and her comrades, was—

"Blondie!" Amber's voice blared over all their headsets. Babydoll winced.

"What are you doing with these?" Rocket, with clear reluctance, lowered her rifle.

"Oh. I get it." Sweet Pea. "You've taken them prisoner."

Blondie pushed her goggles up a little further up on her head. "What's with you people? I thought you'd freak. You're acting like...it's almost as if you've seen them before." Then: "How come you're all gawking? Did you run into them on the way down, too? What?"

"No time," Babydoll snapped. "Blondie, we need to get through this door," she motioned with her pistol, "and even Amber's last two missiles couldn't do more than dent it."

"Ah. Maybe we can help with that."

"'We?'" Rocket looked at the chrome soldiers, that reflected her smudged grimacing face back at her.

"I'm their new master."

_"What?"_ Sweet Pea's jaw nearly hit the floor.

"All right. Now," Blondie addressed her three minions of polished metal. "We need to get through there. Can you help?"

The robots snapped into action—they were fast, Babydoll recalled. In perfect unison they sprang to the door, bent down, and placed their hands on it. Lights red and green brightened beneath their outstretched fingers, which tapped and drummed as if playing an invisible keyboard.

The gate shivered, then began rumbling upward like a drawbridge. The robots straightened up and stepped back.

"Crap!" Rocket scrambled for cover. It was rising too fast, leaving everyone exposed. At least the smoke still drifting in the chamber would partially obscure them. She crouched down on one side.

Babydoll took up a position on the other. "What did they do?" she yelled to Blondie behind her.

The girl shrugged. "Couldn't tell you. I guess they knew the combination, or tapped into the ship's system and cracked it."

"All right, ladies." Amber's voice again; the dragon mech stomped up behind them. "Everyone ready for this?"

Babydoll waited, pistol raised.

_I've been waiting for this,_ she thought,_ since the beginning. Waiting and praying and fighting for it, thinking of it day and night, since the moment I saw mother dead and_ him_ smirking with a satisfaction he didn't bother to hide._

* * *

><p>High up on his throne, the Ruler sat and watched the gate rise. Smoke drifted underneath it into his chambers. He hated dirty, smelly things like smoke. No crewman would ever dare light a cigarette in his presence, for they knew it would mean instant arrest, execution, and being thrown over the side. Yet there it was.<p>

By his side, the Investor was throwing a category-five tantrum. His belly, his jowls and his thousand gems jiggled; his fat arms flailed. "What did I tell you, what did I tell you_ what did I tell you?"_

"Quiet." The Ruler was trying to think. The gate rose higher every moment, more of that awful _smoke_ wafting in—

_Forget about the smoke! Think! Think!_

"I TOLD YOU, I TOLD YOU!"

That was it. No more. The Ruler felt it coming, he could not stop it, his hand reached down into a compartment inside his right armrest and drew out a .357 Magnum, raising it until it was pointed at his friend's perspiring face. The Investor screamed.

"NOOOO, DON'T!"

A shot rang out. But not from the Magnum—this report issued from across the cavern, reverberating around the vast space. A spark shot up from the Magnum as it flew from the Ruler's hand.

He turned and looked toward the direction of the shot, knowing already what he would see.

The blond girl stood there with pistol leveled. Smoke _(more smoke!)_ curled up from its muzzle.

"He's not yours," she said. "He's mine."

Two of her fellow Amazons, wearing goggles and a thrown-back hood, stepped up to her left. Another in a field nurse's cap positioned herself on the girl's right. And marching up behind them, each step like muffled thunder—yes. Great. The dragon mech.

How could so many things go wrong?

The Investor waggled a finger at him. "I told you!"

The Ruler batted that nauseating face with the back of his hand. "Ow!" Finally the fat man shut up.

"Ladies. Delighted you're here..." he cleared his throat, stood up, swept an arm down to the dock off to his right where the _Hellraiser_ steamed in its berth. "You're just in time. See that missile hanging over the submarine? That's the last one to load, and then my submarine is off to make history!

"To load it," he continued, picking up a crystal decanter and pouring himself a goblet of clear bubbly, "will take no more than a few seconds. All the crane has to do is slide it down into the tube. The _Hellraiser's_ engines are running, and her personnel are all at their stations."

"Call it off." Babydoll, pistol aimed at him, advanced. The others followed behind.

"Or what? You'll blow me away?"

The man's left hand shot out and grabbed the quivering Investor by the collar, pulling the man up and in front of him. His right hand held the goblet during this time, and spilled none of it. He took a sip.

"Blow _him_ away! Maybe you shouldn't have tipped your hand there, little girl!" It was one of the rare times when he allowed his lip to curl back, his voice to truly snarl. "Shut up," he hissed at the Investor, who was bawling like a little boy.

"Besides, ladies," the Ruler went on after draining his glass, "did you really think I'd leave myself unguarded down here?"

And he shouted, "All squads, come to attention!"

They stormed out from everywhere, from the left and the right and from beneath the Ruler's throne where more great caverns may have criss-crossed the depths of the ship.

"I know a thing or two." The Ruler poured himself another glass. "I've looked into your histories. Didn't you think I would do that? Well, ladies, now you've got yourself a reunion. Say hello to them all!"

Babydoll didn't really hear him. She didn't need to. She saw it all, the players swarming into the chamber: the steam-powered zombies in German uniforms; the filthy, slobbering orcs she had battled at the dragon's castle; and a clattering battalion of mechanized gunmen from the hijacked train, and whose ex-comrades had just let her into this place.

At least the hordes included no demon-samurai. She had vanquished all three of those.

But the dragon—well, there was more than one dragon in the world. And one came grumbling forth, stepping on and crushing a zombie-soldier or two like beer cans as it went, steam hissing out beneath its clawed feet. This made little difference, for the girl had quickly lost count of the number of foes rising to this challenge.

Then, following it, crawled a second dragon, belching fire.

* * *

><p><em>Next up: the Grand Finale.<em>


	26. Grand Finale

_Author's note: Karrottop, thanks for your review. And Ariadne, welcome back! I very much appreciate your kind return. _

_Song for this chapter: "Storytime" by Nightwish_

* * *

><p><em>This is it.<em> Babydoll scanned around the chamber, the orcs and robots and steam-driven soldiers all charging her at once, and willed herself to remain calm. _The defining event of my entire life. What all my reading, training and experiences have led up to._

Something else came to mind: _Courage is fear hanging on for a minute longer._ She couldn't recall if she'd heard that from the Wise Man, or read it somewhere.

The girls formed into a semicircle.

"Amber." Babydoll touched her headset. "Can you keep the dragons busy?"

"Just let me through!" Baby could imagine her sucking on a lollipop, cheery as ever.

The mech thundered forward, leaping over the girls, revolving in midair and crashing down with its back to the oncoming lizards, tilted low as if bowing to Amber's warrior comrades. Its four clawed feet dug into the deck. The mech's boosters blasted to life like an Apollo rocket igniting, its chassis shaking, the firestorm driving the roaring dragons back.

Babydoll, crouched low, watched the scene. It split the attackers into two groups that had to circle around the fiery mech in one direction or the other: zombies to the left, orcs to the right, and robots interspersed among both.

"Blondie?"

"Right here, Baby." The girl brandished submachine gun in one hand and hatchet in the other.

"Can your new friends help us with those robots?"

"Hope so. Guys!" She shouted to her three mechanized servants. "I need you to go out and reset as many of those as you can, like I reset you. Got it?"

The word AFFIRMATIVE flickered red on their faces, and dissolved. They ran to meet the approaching gun-toting machines.

"Go! Everyone, go!" The Ruler was on his feet, waving his empty goblet. The Investor cowered behind the throne. "Get them, get them! Crane crew, look sharp!" The missile descended toward the waiting tube, twenty feet above it, now fifteen, now ten.

"Girls." Babydoll flashed out her katana with her right hand, held her pistol with her left. "Every second counts. Rocket and Sweet Pea, you take the soldiers. Blondie and I will handle the orcs. Do whatever you can, but at least one of us has to knock out that crane."

The girls sprang to their task.

Rocket used her flame-thrower first, sweeping blazing arcs and setting the closest soldiers aflame. They continued their charge, as if not aware they were on fire, until they burst and exploded into oil flames and white clouds of steam. When the weapon ran out of fuel, Rocket raised it like a baseball bat and brained another soldier with it. The zombie collapsed.

Then she grabbed her M-16 and joined her sister in spraying bullets in criss-crossing arcs, mowing down zombies and robots. One soldier reached Sweet Pea, who dispatched it with a knife-stab to the chest, steam hissing from the wound. Rocket kicked another one back. The girls held their own, but could make no progress toward the crane and its relentlessly lowering missile.

Babydoll and Blondie stood side by side, whirling katana and hatchet. Orcs lunged and spat and were sliced to pieces, or dispatched by Babydoll's pistol in splatters of black blood.

The missile lowered to within a foot of the tube...and then the lights went out. The crane engine whined down. The cavern's yellow emergency lights clicked on as the missile ceased its descent.

Babydoll thought she could hear the Ruler cursing. The girls, sweating and out of breath, looked around.

"Anyone know what just happened?" Sweet Pea sighted down a zombie.

"Those would be more of my friends." Blondie fired a sub-machine gun burst at a roaring orc. Its face splattered. "I left them in engineering, with a job to do."

Babydoll swiped her katana at another orc, a brute seven feet tall with a red crest on its helmet, which clattered to the floor a moment later, along with its fanged head.

The Ruler flung his goblet down into the fray. Babydoll could not see where it landed, nor heard the sound of it breaking. "Crane crew!" he bellowed, face gorged, stabbing a finger at them. "You know what to do! Your backup batteries!"

_How long will that take?_ Babydoll wondered, even as she banged off another shot. But at least they had a little more time.

Only a little, it turned out. The crane whined to life again, and the missile continued its downward journey. A few more moments, and it would be there.

Blondie's three robots were making quick rounds among the mechanized gunmen, slapping and doing some kind of manipulation to the backs of their necks at high, efficient, mechanized speed. The robots treated this way stopped and stood still, as if frozen.

"Blondie." Babydoll pointed to them. "Is that what you meant by 'reset?'"

"Hope so. Hey!" Blondie grabbed an attacking orc with both hands, threw it aside and ran to the robots, kicking another orc out of the way as she went.

"Maybe they can help?" Babydoll ran an orc through, shot another. More clouds of steam whooshed out from where the two sisters rattled off M-16 bursts at zombies.

Blondie weaved her way into the center of the crowd of robots. She pointed at the zombies, the orcs.

"Uh—sic'em!" she cried.

The robots scattered, turning their guns on the enemies. More hisses sounded; black orc-blood flew. The enemy began thinning out, and Amber was still keeping the two dragons busy, her mech now slugging the screaming monsters with its wrecking-ball fists.

Babydoll thought she heard another shout of rage from the Ruler.

No—not rage. Joy. The missile slid down into the tube, and the cover clamped shut over it. The officers in naval blue, standing up in the submarine's conning tower, shouted something, no doubt giving orders to dive out of this pandemonium.

The girl tensed. _Too late, too late!—No. Don't ever think that._

The first dragon had fallen, curled up on its side, scorched and smoking. The mech was bludgeoning the second with two of its legs, one-two, one-two, knocking teeth from its mouth, the dragon shuddering, until it too collapsed into a heap of scaly flesh. Blood trickled from its jaws.

"Amber." Babydoll wheezed, trying to catch her breath. "Everyone! Up on the mech!"

"Roger, Baby!"

"Roger!"

The replies all crackled in at once, the girls rushing to her side, scrambling up onto the great machine until they sat perched on its shoulders.

The mech rose up to its full height. Across the chamber, the submarine began to dive, water churning and foaming white around it.

Enemies lay strewn over the floor, broken machinery and bloodied reptile flesh, helmets and severed limbs. Two or three zombies and a goblin remained, squashed by the mech as it bounded forward. The crane crew dove out of the way. Babydoll held on.

The mech gathered its four legs underneath it and once again leaped.

Now the Ruler did cry out for rage.

With a splash like a tidal wave, the mech slammed its full weight down on the middle of the _Hellraiser. _The submarine broke in two, its bow and stern jutting up, sprinkling Babydoll's face with salt spray. The wreck wallowed, water streaming from its two pieces, sinking fast...and the mech with it.

"Amber?" Babydoll stood up.

Her headset crackled. "Stupid doors don't seem to be working..."

"Crap!" Rocket watching the foaming water rush up at them. The submarine's bow section was history, having plunged under, the stern section following with a graceful slide.

The girls crawled down onto the mech's forward chassis, grabbing any hold they could find, pulling, the water reaching their shoes, their legs, their waists.

The doors popped open with a hiss.

"Hey!" Amber wriggled out, and splashed in. Babydoll reached down and pulled her back up.

Blondie leaped across to the dock. The sisters followed, holding hands, then the soaked Amber and, finally, Babydoll.

The other four cheered, laughed and embraced each other...but the blond girl, a forelock dangling over her face, turned her gaze up at the throne and the two men there.

They looked back. The Ruler had changed, like a deflated balloon, and his face, though it bravely tried to show anger, reverted to an expression more like the groveling, trembling Investor's.

She walked across the floor, stepping over the carcasses of vanquished foes, their scattered armor and weapons, and climbed the steps until she stood over the two men. The Ruler...but mostly the Investor. He looked up at her, lower lip quivering, face wet. He needed to blow his nose.

He opened his mouth, and said—


	27. EpilogueReturn to Reality

—"Babydoll?"

And there Stepdad trembled, on his knees, just having crawled from the wreck of the Businessman's Learjet 40 XR. It had been taxiing up the runway, taking off for Europe...but then the limousine had pulled onto the runway, blocking its path, and the pilot had panicked. Now the aircraft lay crumpled and smoking in the grass, the Businessman fallen unconscious after crawling out, and Stepdad battered and bruised, one eye blackened where his head had hit something during the crash.

_What? What did I call her just now? _He squinted, shook his head. He was going to say "Emily."

Four others came up to join her, two on each side. There was an Asian girl, who had been driving the stolen limo. He didn't know her, or the others. He only knew the one whom Babydoll—_Emily,_ damn it!—had sprung from that women's nut hatch. All wore ordinary dresses, or blouses and pants; yet he couldn't shake the feeling that there was nothing ordinary about these at all.

Police sirens approached.

It occurred to Stepdad, this was the first time he'd seen this girl since the night he took her to Lennox House. She appeared ten feet taller now, her features strong and serene. Stepdad, who remembered all too well the anguished, enraged stepdaughter pointing a pistol at him that night, hardly recognized her.

"You're through," she said.

He shuddered; the words hit him harder than gunshots.

_That doctor said she'd been a handful. _

And what a handful! In just the past few days, she'd somehow gotten all the way to her friend's house (after springing three more of them—apparently it was a habit now), and the four girls overpowered the hit men the Businessman had sent out. _Can't have that broad running around loose,_ the Business had coolly explained. _She might know too much._ And the girls had gotten the better of them—_how?_ He couldn't understand it.

Then they followed that up by sneaking into the New York celebration soiree the Businessman had insisted on throwing, wheedling the departure location out of one of his top executives (that stupid idiot!), then sneaking onto the Ruler's private airfield, knocking out the power, stealing one of his limousines, careening through armed security men (bullet-proof limo of course, tires too), and bringing everything to rack and ruin right when Stepdad thought he could finally relax!

The black and white squad cars pulled up, and policemen stepped out. Mother's entire fortune, and enough evidence to put Stepdad away for life, was locked away in the baggage compartment that, as far as he could tell, remained intact.

Stepdad put his arms behind his head. The Businessman stirred, moaning. His face was cut and his hair was a tangled mess. _Fine time to wake up!_

All at once the Business snapped awake, his eyes catching fire. He spat.

Stepdad cringed; but it wasn't meant for him. He turned to see an old bespectacled man with a kindly, sad face standing with the girls. Where did _he_ come from? The spittle fell short.

"Missed." The old man shook his head. "Just like you missed your chance in life."

"Think you're better than me?" The Business sobbed, snarled out the words. "Just because you're such a do-gooder?"

"I warned you long ago, no good can come of exploiting people."

"Oh, spare me. You've always talked like you're some kind of wise man! If you hadn't signed for the inmates' releases, and gave them a ride in your Greyhound all the way to that girl's house, and then to my airfield—"

"You were doomed the moment you chose your life's course," said the old man. "You would just never allow yourself to see it."

The officers moved in and took over, helping the two criminals to their feet, snapping handcuffs on their wrists.

The old man smiled at the girls. "Well done, I'd say."

Babydoll returned his smile. "Thank you. For everything."

He nodded. "By tomorrow, you'll have your home back at last. And your rightful inheritance." He paused. "Though I must say, it's an awfully big place to live by yourself..."

"Yes. I could use some roommates."

The girls giggled; none of them objected.

_And where does our journey take us now? Places as boundless as the imagination, and as dangerous as dragons' lairs and raging battlefields? Perhaps many; but those journeys are for another day. Now is the time for your story, your journey._

_You have all the weapons you need._

_Now fight._

* * *

><p><em>Author's final note: I can't believe this ride's been going on since July! Many, many thanks to everyone who's read and reviewed, even to those who just read; I like to think that maybe quite a few people have. Hope you enjoyed it. <em>

_It's hard to believe it was one year ago today when this film came out. I was in the middle of my own adventure, having lost my job & apartment in San Diego and deciding, rather than becoming one more of that city's homeless, to hit the road for the grand journey of my life! And I can never thank my Creator enough for the way he's taken care of me. I walked/hitchhiked to Phoenix, where I spent the winter in a comfortable halfway house, working in a call center and saving up to resume my journey. When SP opened, I took a holiday and saw it in IMAX at the Arizona Mills mall. _

_When spring arrived, I took off on a Greyhound, had a weeks' tourist fling seeing Washington DC, and now live in Providence, Rhode Island, where great fantasists like Poe and Lovecraft hung out. The Veterans' Administration is taking wonderful care of me until I find a good job...and the vet's home where I live even has this great computer room, where I can spend my evenings following Babydoll's lead and visiting fantastic places._

_Thank you all again, so much, for coming along with me on this journey! My earnest hope is that you enjoyed reading it as much as I loved writing it. I like to think that if Mr. Snyder ever saw it, he'd think it at least halfway-decent. :)_

_Best wishes always,_

_Doug_


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